Anoxypristis

The narrow sawfish, also known as the pointed sawfish or knifetooth sawfish, is a species of sawfish in the family Pristidae, part of the Batoidea, a superorder of cartilaginous fish that include the rays and skates. Sawfish display a circumglobal distribution in warm marine and freshwater habitats. Their extant biodiversity is limited to five species belonging to two genera. The sawfishes are characterised by the long, narrow, flattened rostrum or extension on their snout. This is lined with sharp transverse teeth, arranged in a way that resembles the teeth of a saw and are used for killing prey. It is found in the shallow coastal waters and estuaries of the Indo-West Pacific, ranging from the Persian Gulf to southern Japan, Papua New Guinea and northern Australia. It is the only living member of the genus Anoxypristis, but was previously included in the genus Pristis. Compared to Pristis, Anoxypristis has a narrower rostral saw with numerous teeth on the distal part and no teeth on the basal one-quarter. It reaches a length of up to 3.5 m (11 ft).

Anoxypristis

Sir Francis Day (1829–1889) · Public Domain · via Wikidata/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
PristidaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Chondrichthyes
Life habit
nektonicPBDB, for Chondrichthyes
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Chondrichthyes

Time the record covers

At least 68 million years on record.

The record covers at least 72.2 Mya to 3.6 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 83.6 Mya to 2.58 Mya.

Late Cretaceous — about 1 of 70 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 70 occurrencesEocene — about 58 of 70 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 2 of 70 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 5 of 70 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 4 of 70 occurrencesPleistocene — about 0 of 70 occurrences85–82 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences82–80 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences80–77 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences77–74 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences74–71 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences57–54 Mya — about 2 occurrences54–52 Mya — about 3 occurrences52–49 Mya — about 3 occurrences49–46 Mya — about 6 occurrences46–43 Mya — about 7 occurrences43–40 Mya — about 6 occurrences40–37 Mya — about 5 occurrences37–35 Mya — about 21 occurrences35–32 Mya — about 6 occurrences29–26 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences26–23 Mya — about 1 occurrence23–21 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences21–18 Mya — about 1 occurrence18–15 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences12–9.4 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences9.4–6.6 Mya — about 1 occurrence6.6–3.8 Mya — about 4 occurrences3.8–960 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence72.2 Mya3.6 Mya85 Mya960 ka

70 occurrences of Anoxypristis on record, most of them in the Eocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

70 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

29 formations

Birket Qarun — 29.27°N, 30.01°EBirket Qarun — 29.50°N, 30.56°EQasr el-Sagha — 29.60°N, 30.67°EQasr el-Sagha — 29.32°N, 30.05°EQasr el-Sagha — 29.29°N, 29.99°EMatam — 15.32°N, 13.03°WMatam — 15.31°N, 13.09°WAmeki — 5.00°N, 7.50°EAmeki — 5.56°N, 7.52°EGehannam — 29.31°N, 30.18°EGehannam — 29.33°N, 30.08°ESelsey — 50.80°N, 1.21°WMidawara — 29.02°N, 30.10°EMidawara — 29.08°N, 30.10°EMidawara — 29.00°N, 30.00°ESamlat — 23.36°N, 16.03°WNanjemoy — 38.28°N, 77.37°WEsbarrondadoiro — 38.17°N, 8.17°WEsbarrondadoiro — 39.30°N, 8.12°WChilcatay — 14.62°S, 75.63°WStone City — 30.67°N, 96.56°WTallahatta — 31.31°N, 88.73°WTallahatta — 31.37°N, 86.52°WElmore — 50.80°N, 1.21°WRishtan — 41.65°N, 64.69°EDaba'a — 29.16°N, 27.43°EBelgrade — 34.89°N, 77.23°WGosport Sand — 31.50°N, 87.80°WTar Heel — 34.61°N, 78.60°WCatahoula — 31.66°N, 88.66°WLandana — 5.22°S, 12.14°ELisbon — 31.36°N, 86.52°WArgille Azzurre — 43.58°N, 10.92°EDammam — 25.43°N, 50.80°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Anoxypristis has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 5 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 5 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Anoxypristis and its relatives

Eocene

Where Anoxypristis and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

888 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 47 sites for Anoxypristis, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

29 references

Each of the 70 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 17 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Anoxypristis

Credit
Sir Francis Day (1829–1889)
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itPristidae through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. White and Moy-Thomas 1941