Sawfish
The dwarf and largetooth sawfish are strictly warm-water species that generally live in waters that are and respectively. The green and smalltooth sawfish also occur in colder waters, in the latter down to , as illustrated by their (original) distributions that ranged further north and south of the strictly warm-water species. Sawfish are bottom-dwellers, but in captivity it has been noted that at least the largetooth and green sawfish readily take food from the water surface. Sawfish are mostly found in places with soft bottoms such as mud or sand, but may also occur over hard rocky bottoms or at coral reefs. They are often found in areas with seagrass or mangrove.
Sawfish
Sawfish have a strong shark-like body, a flat underside and a flat head. "Pristis" sawfish have a rough sandpaper-like skin texture because of the covering of dermal denticles, but in "Anoxypristis" the skin is largely smooth. The mouth and nostrils are placed on the underside of the head. There are about 88–128 small, blunt-edged teeth in the upper jaw of the mouth and about 84–176 in the lower jaw (not to be confused with the teeth on the saw). These are arranged in 10–12 rows on each jaw, and somewhat resemble a cobblestone road. They have small eyes and behind each is a spiracle, which is used to draw water past the gills. The gill slits, five on each side, are placed on the underside of the body near the base of the pectoral fins. The position of the gill openings separates them from the superficially similar, but generally much smaller (up to long) sawsharks, where the slits are placed on the side of the neck. Unlike sawfish, sawsharks also have a pair of long barbels on the rostrum ("saw").