Fishes of the JVestern North Atlantic 2 i 



to the Carolinas, occasionally to Chesapeake Bay, and accidentally to New Jersey; in 

 the eastern Atlantic they occasionally range to the Mediterranean and as strays to 

 Portugal. To the southward they occur to southern Brazil and northern Argentina in 

 one side of the ocean and along tropical West Africa to the Cape of Good Hope in 

 the other.'^' Their range elsewhere is extensive also: in the eastern Pacific from northern 

 Mexico to Ecuador; in the west from Indo-China to Queensland and south seasonally 

 to New South Wales (Sydney), including the East Indies; the tropical coasts of the 

 Indian Ocean as a whole, including the Arabian Sea, south to the Islands of Reunion 

 and Madagascar and to Natal; and the Red Sea. It is probable that the failure of 

 scientific literature to report their presence for any of the island groups of the western 

 tropical Pacific chiefly reflects the imperfection of the published record. 



Species. The species of Pristis are separable into two groups according to whether 

 the caudal has a distinct lower lobe or not. This distinction is used, in fact, as the basis 

 for subgeneric separation in the most recent synopsis of the Sawfishes of the western 

 Pacific-Indian Ocean. 5' The positions of the first dorsal relative to the pelvics and 

 of the second dorsal relative to the caudal are characters of specific value. The num- 

 ber of rostral teeth, a character that is fixed before birth, also differs in different 

 species. 



The group in which the caudal fin has a lower lobe is represented in the western 

 Atlantic by one species with 16—19 pairs of rostral teeth; this appears to be identical 

 with the Sawfish described as Pristis perotteti from Senegal, West Africa, in 1841 by 

 Miiller and Henle. P. zephyreus Jordan and Starks 1895 of the Pacific Coast of Central 

 America appears not to be separable from it, except perhaps by a slightly larger average 

 number of teeth (p. 41). And P. perotteti is closely allied to the form that has been 

 reported repeatedly as P. microdon Latham 1794 from various localities in Australian 

 waters, from Indo-China, from the East Indies, from the Indian Ocean, and recently 

 from India as P. perotteti}^ The lower caudal lobe is still more prominent in P. cus- 

 pidatus of the western Pacific and Indian oceans; and P . leichhardti Whitley 1945,^' 

 recently described from Australia, also has a distinct lower caudal lobe. 



The group lacking a lower caudal lobe is similarly represented in the western 

 side of the Atlantic (so far as is known) by only a single species. This has usually been 

 referred to P . pectinatus Latham 1794 because of its numerous rostral teeth (25— 32 pairs) 

 and it is so named here. A form resembling it closely in number of teeth and in relative 

 positions of fins has been reported under this same name from the Pacific Coast of 

 Central America, from South Africa, from the Indian Ocean and Red Sea, and from 

 the Philippines. Here again the true relationship of the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean 

 form remains to be established. 



It appears that the Atlantic Sawfish which Linnaeus, in 1758, named Squalus 

 pristis (type species of the genus) also lacks a lower caudal lobe, for the illustration on 



56. Gunther (Cat. Fish. Brit. Mus., S, 1870: 438) lists one from the Cape. 



57. Fowler, Bull. U.S. nat. Mus., 100 (rj), 1941: 291. 



58. By Prater, J.Bombay nat. Hist. Soc, 41, 1939: 435. 59- Aust. Zool., 11 (i), 1945: 44- 



