Largetooth Sawfish (Pristis perotteti)

	Did You Know? · Largetooth sawfish can have about 30-40 teeth on their "saw," or rostrum.

Status
ESA Candidate Species - throughout its range
ESA Species of Concern - Texas and Florida

Taxonomy
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Chondrichthyes
Order: Pristiformes
Family: Pristidae
Genus: Pristis
Species: perotteti

The smalltooth sawfish (Pristis pectinata) is another species of sawfish.

Key Documents
(All documents are in PDF format.)

Title	Federal Register	Date
90-day finding, Initiation of Status Review	74 FR 37671	07/29/2009
WildEarth Guardians Petition to List Largetooth Sawfish	n/a	04/24/2009
Previous 90-day finding (2000)	65 FR 12959	03/10/2000
Ocean Conservancy (formerly Center for Marine Conservation) 1999 Petition to List Smalltooth and Largetooth Sawfish under the ESA as a North American "DPS"	n/a	11/30/1999

More Information

• Largetooth Sawfish Species of Concern Fact Sheet [pdf]
• IUCN Red List Species Information 
• Florida Museum of Natural History Species Information 
• Fishbase Species Summary 
• Georgia Aquarium Species Information 
• Proposal to Include All Species in the Family Pristidae in Appendix 1 of CITES [pdf] 
• Science Daily Article on Largetooth Sawfish CITES Trade Ban 
• Texas Prohibition on Fishing for Largetooth Sawfish 

References from the 90-day Finding (2009)

• Beebe W. and J. Tee-Van. 1941. Fishes from the tropical eastern Pacific. Part 3: Rays, mantas and Chimaeras. Zoologica 26: 245-280.
• Bigelow, H.B. and W.C. Schroeder. 1953. Fishes of the Western North Atlantic. Part 2: Sawfishes, Guitarfishes, Skates and Rays; Chimaeroids. Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.
• Burgess, G.H. and T.H. Curtis. 2003. Temporal reductions in the distribution and abundance of U.S. Atlantic sawfishes (Pristis spp.). Abstract: American Society of Ichthyologist and Herpetologists/American Elasmobranch Society Annual Meeting. Manaus, Brazil.
• Camhi, M., et al. 1998. Sharks and their relatives- ecology and conservation. IUCN/SSC Shark Specialist Group. IUCN. Gland Switzerland; Cambridge U.K.
• Charvet-Almeida, P. 2002. Sawfish trade in the north of Brazil. Shark News 14: 9.
• Charvet-Almeida, P., V. Faria, M. Furtado, S.F. Cook, L.J.V. Compagno and M.I. Oetinger. 2007. Pristis perotteti. In: IUCN 2009. IUCN Red List of threatened species. Version 2009.1. <www.iucnredlist.org>. Downloaded on 12 June 2009.
• Chirichigno, N. and M. Cornejo. 2001. Catalogo Comentado de los peces marinos del Perú. Publicación Especial. Instituto del Mar del Perú.
• Compagno, L.J.V. and S.F. Cook. 1995. The exploitation and conservation of freshwater elasmobranchs: status of taxa and prospects for the future. The biology of freshwater elasmobranchs. The Journal of Aquariculture and Aquatic Science. 7: 62-90.
• Compagno, L.J.V. and P.R. Last. 1999. Pristidae. Sawfishes. p. 1410-1417. In: Carpenter, K.E. and V. Niem (eds.), FAO Identification Guide for Fishery Purposes. Vol 3. The living marine resources of the Western Central Pacific. FAO, Rome. Largetooth status as species questioned so synonymized with P. microdon here.
• Cook, S.F., L.J.V. Compagno, M.I. and Oetinger. 2005. Largetooth sawfish Pristis perotteti. In: S.L. Fowler, M. Camhi, G.H. Burgess, G.M. Cailliet, S.V. Fordham, R.D. Cavanagh, C.A. Simpfendorfer, and J.A. Musick (eds). Sharks, rays and chimaeras: the status of the chondrichthyan fishes, pp. 325-327. IUCN SSC Shark Specialist Group. IUCN, Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge, UK.
• Fowler, H.W. 1936. The marine fishes of West Africa. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 70: 1493.
• Fowler, H.W. 1941. The fishes of the groups Elasmobranchii, Holocephali, Isospondyli, and Ostariophysi obtained by United States Bureau of Fisheries Steamer Albatross in 1907 to 1910, chiefly in the Philippines Islands and adjacent seas. Bulletin of the United States National Museum (100) 13: 1-879.
• Garman, S. 1913. The Plagiostomia. Memoirs of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard. No. 36, 515 pp.
• Jordon, D.S. and Evermann, B.W. 1896. The Fishes of North and Middle America. Bulletin of the United States National Museum 47(1): 1-1240. Q11 U6
• McDavitt, M.T. 2002. Lake Nicaragua revisited: conversations with a former sawfish fisherman. Shark News 14: 5.
• McDavitt, M.T. and P. Charvet-Almeida. 2004. Quantifying trade in sawfish rostra two examples. Shark News 16: 10-11.
• McEachran, J.D., and J.D. Fechhelm. 1998. Fishes of the Gulf of Mexico. Volume 1: Myxiniformes to Gaserosteiformes. University of Texas Press, Austin Texas. 1112 p.
• Menni, R.C. and Stehmann, M.F.W. 2000. Distribution, environment and biology of batoid fishes off Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil, a review. Revista del Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales (Nueva Serie) 2(1): 69-109.
• Musick, J.A., M.M. Harbin, S.A. Berkeley, G.H. Burgess, A.M. Eklund, L. Findley, R.G. Gilmore, J.T. Golden, D.S. Ha, G.R. Huntsman, J.C. McGovern, S.J. Parker, S.G. Poss, E. Sala, T.W. Schmidt, G.R. Sedberry, H. Weeks, and S.G. Wright. 2000. Marine, estuarine, and diadromous fish stocks at risk of extinction in North America. Fisheries 25(11): 6-30.
• Simpfendorfer, C.A. 2000. Predicting population recovery rates for endangered western Atlantic sawfishes using demographic analysis. Environmental Biology of Fishes 58: 371-377.
• Tanaka, T. 1994. Research of freshwater elasmobranchs in Lake Nicaragua. Report of the Japanese Society for Elasmobranch Studies 31: 26-34.
• Taniuchi, T. 1992. Report on preliminary investigation of freshwater elasmobranchs in Mexico and Central America. Report of Japanese Society for Elasmobranch Studies 29: 33-49.
• Thorson, T.B. 1974. Of the sawfish, Pristis perotteti, in the Amazon River with notes on P. pectinata. Copeia 1974(2): 560-564.
• Thorson, T.B. 1976. Observations on the reproduction of the sawfish, Pristis perotteti, in Lake Nicaragua, with recommendations for its conservation. pp. 641-650, In: T.B. Thorson (ed.) Investigations of the ichthyofauna of Nicaraguan lakes. University of Nebraska-Lincoln Press.
• Thorson, T.B. 1980. La explotacion excesiva del pez sierra, Pristis perotteti, en el Lago Nicaragua. ConCienca 7(1): 11-13.
• Thorson, T.B. 1982a. The impact of commercial exploitation on sawfish and shark populations in Lake Nicaragua. Fisheries 7(2): 2-10.
• Thorson, T.B. 1982b. Life history implications of a tagging study of the largetooth sawfish, Pristis perotteti, in the Lake Nicaragua-Rio San Juan system. Environmental Biology of Fishes 7: 207-228.
• Thorson, T.B. 1987. Human impacts on shark populations. In: S.F. Cook (ed.). Sharks-an inquiry into biology, behavior, fisheries and use. Oregon State University.
• Vakily, J.M., S.B. Camara, A.N. Mendy, V. Marques, B. Samba, A.J. dos Santos, M.F. Sheriff, , M. Ould Taleb Sidi, and D. Pauly. 2002. Poissons marins de la sous-région Africaine. EUR 20379 FR. European Commission, Brussels.
• Wueringer, B.E., L. Squire Jr. and S.P. Collin. 2009. The biology of extinct and extant sawfish (Batoidea: Sclerorhynchidae and Pristidae). Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries. DOI 10.1007/s11160-009-9112-7