Sawfish Characteristics

The Borneo Bulletin frontpage today showed fishermen caught a 600kg sawfish or known locally as Yu Gargaji or Yu Parang. Notice this is different from a sword fish. The sword fish has a sharp long snout, while sawfish has a long flattened tooth saw. The sawfish belongs to the group of sharks and rays. If you look at the picture, the mouth of the sawfish is at the bottom, just like a stingray, and has a body similar to the sharks family.

But what is the purpose of the saw-toothed snout? And how does it work? The sawfish feeds on shrimps, crabs and other bottom dwellings small animals along with any small fishes. The saw is used in obtaining food by disrupting the bottom and dislodging any prey items that maybe available. They are also used in slashing through small fishes, stunning them before consuming. Sawfish also use their saw for defense as it is tremendously powerful from side to side.

One thing interesting is that the tooth, once lost, are not replaced. There are a few species in this world, ranging from small toothed to large toothed, and with teeth ranging between 17 to 34 per side.

Because of their shape of the body, they are easily entangled in nets. Sawfish are dangerous to handle when alive, did considerable damage to nets and have little commercial value. Now I wonder if the fins will end up in the chinese restaurants.