Indian fishermen caught a giant strange fish, with a 2-meter-long "chainsaw" on its head, a shark-like body, weighing 250 kilograms, and experts were horrified: this is a prehistoric creature, it is critically endangered! What kind of species is this strange-looking fish?
This is a curious story that happened in the Indian state of Karnataka in March 2022, and according to fishermen, they have never seen a strange fish of this shape. Its body resembles some kind of large shark, but it has a long, flat, sword-like snout with hard snout teeth on the sides of the edges, which looks like a chainsaw. Because the snout was entangled in a fishing net, the fish was dead when it was caught ashore.
Later, the relevant department invited experts to check and found that the identity of this fish was indeed extraordinary, it was a sawfish fish. Sawfish is a family of cartilaginous fishes under the order Sawfish, containing 2 genera and 7 species of large fish, which lived on the earth as early as the Cretaceous period, more than 50 million years ago, and can be called living fossils of fish.
Obviously, sawfish are very different from the rays commonly found in aquariums, they are biologically close relatives of sharks, and even similar in appearance to sharks of the order Sawshark. It's just that the saw shark's snout has two tentacles, while the sawfish does not.
Its sheer size is also impressive, with Indian fishermen catching the sawfish over 5 metres long and weighing 250 kilograms. That's not even the upper limit for them, sawfish can reach up to 9 meters in length and weigh more than 500 kilograms, which can be said to be comparable to great white sharks.
This strange giant fish has a sharp "chainsaw mouth", which makes people wonder, what is their real aggression?
First of all, sawfish is a warm-water benthic fish that lives on the offshore bottom of shallow tropical and subtropical waters, feeding mainly on crustaceans and invertebrates, and also preying on small fish in schools of fish. Because the sawfish's mouth grows under the body and not at the front end, it cannot open its blood basin and bite its prey like a great white shark, and can only swallow some small prey alive.
So how does it forage and hunt? It relies on its chainsaw nozzle. They usually move slowly, lurking in the bottom sand, digging and foraging with a sharp and hard kiss saw, and after turning over the food, they quickly rush up and inhale it into their mouths.
But when they encounter a school of fish, they will uncharacteristically rush into the school of fish and shake a saw kiss left and right, stabbing the small fish that have no time to dodge. When they slowly sink to the bottom of the sea, the sawfish can swallow them into their stomachs.
In the predation process of sawfish, the sawkiss not only plays the role of "shovel" and "mace", but also an "electronic receiver", which can sensitively detect the electric field generated by prey, so that the prey can not hide.
Secondly, sawfish are fierce by nature, which can be seen from their exaggerated and peculiar appearance. If an enemy intrudes into its territory, it will also attack the opponent with its sharp serrations. With this offensive advantage, they have also become top predators in offshore areas.
However, this sawtooth has completely lost its deterrent effect in the face of humans holding industrial machines. They have the same economic value as sharks, can be made into shark fins, cod liver oil, can also be used in medicine, and the snout is also made into a shark sword to "ward off evil spirits". As a result, sawfish have been hunted and become an endangered species, and European waters are almost extinct.
Who would have thought that the ancient sea creatures that have survived on the earth for more than 50 million years have escaped mass extinctions again and again, and will eventually die out due to human hunting. #Headline Creation Challenge##所见所得, all scientific##sawfish##What rare fish have you caught##Saw shark##Strange fish##Strange knowledge points added ##鲨鱼 #
