Sawfish
The pregnancy lasts several months. There are 1–23 young in each sawfish litter, which are long at birth. In the embryos the rostrum is flexible and it only hardens shortly before birth. To protect the mother the saws of the young have a soft cover, which falls off shortly after birth. The pupping grounds are in coastal and estuarine waters. In most species the young generally stay there for the first part of their lives, occasionally moving upriver when there is an increase in salinity. The exception is the largetooth sawfish where the young move upriver into freshwater where they stay for 3–5 years, sometimes as much as from the sea. In at least the smalltooth sawfish the young show a degree of site fidelity, generally staying in the same fairly small area in the first part of their lives. In the green and dwarf sawfish there are indications that both sexes remain in the same overall region throughout their lives with little mixing between the subpopulations. In the largetooth sawfish the males appear to move more freely between the subpopulations, while mothers return to the region where they were born to give birth to their own young.
Sawshark
The longnose sawshark aka the common sawshark ("Pristiophorus cirratus") is one of 9 species within the family Pristiophoridae. It has unique physical characteristics which include a long, thin, and flattened snout. Midway down the snout, nasal barbels protrude on both sides of the snout. Near the barbels, the longnose sawshark possesses a pair of ampullae of Lorenzini. It is unique among the sawshark family by having a longer snout than any of its counter species. The longnose sawshark is not very large with lengths ranging from around 14 inches at birth to 38 inches in males and 44 inches in females. They can also grow to a weight of 18.7 pounds. They are known to swim in the waters off the southern coast of Australia’s continental shelf. They can also be found in the eastern portion of the Indian Ocean. The longnose sawshark prefers to swim in both the open sea and coastal regions at a depth range of about 120–480 feet. The longnose Sawshark is known to prey on small teleost fish, crustaceans, and small squids. It uses its barbels to detect prey on the ocean floor which it then hits with its snout to immobilize it. Like the other members of the Pristiophorus family, the common sawshark can be identified by a long snout with rows of small teeth and barbels on either side. It has five gill slits on either side of its head and between 19 and 25 teeth on each side.