Author: Latham, 1794
Pristis pectinata Latham, 1794
Status in World Register of Marine Species:
Accepted name: Pristis pectinata Latham, 1794 (updated 2009-06-25)
Diagnosis: 24-32 pairs of rostral teeth on saw. Two dorsal fins, about equal in shape and size, origin of first above origin of pelvic fins; caudal fin without a distinct lower lobe. Colour: uniformly dark grey/brown on back and sides, whitish below. Size: to about 5 m TL, the saw about a quarter of this.
Habitat: no specific data for this area, but in western Atlantic seems adapted to water temperatures of 16-30 °C. Food: fishes and bottomliving animals. Reproduction: ovoviviparous, with gravid females reported to contain 15-20 embryos.
Distribution: Atlantic coasts northward to Gibraltar but Mediterranean records questionable. Elsewhere, in tropical and subtropical waters of the Atlantic; the identity of specimens reported as P. pectinata from the Indian and Pacific Oceans is uncertain.
Eggs, embryonic and young stages. Bigelow and Schroeder, 1953: 28.