Rare creatures – with weapons on their heads – born at SeaWorld. See them swim
For only the second time, a critically endangered fish has been successfully born in captivity, marking an important step in conserving the species.
SeaWorld Orlando welcomed three baby smalltooth sawfish in July and announced the births on International Sawfish Day, Oct. 17.
“The newborns include two females and one male, born on July 11, 2023, and each measured approximately two feet in length,” SeaWorld said in an Oct. 18 Facebook post. “Following their birth, the pups underwent a comprehensive examination, and continue to receive regular check-ups to ensure their sustained health and expected developmental progress.”
Their births are a “historical milestone,” SeaWorld said.
Smalltooth sawfish, Pristis pectinata, are a type of fish that have a flat body and long protrusion called a rostrum, according to the National Wildlife Federation.
Along the rostrum are dozens of teeth, earning them the name sawfish, the NWF said.
They use their rostrum to sweep through the sediment along the seafloor, swiping back and forth to cut their prey.
Smalltooth sawfish spanned the entire Eastern Seaboard into the Gulf of Mexico before they were hunted nearly to extinction, leaving only a small lifeboat population off the southern tip of Florida, evolutionary biologist and director of the Florida Museum of Natural History’s shark research program, Gavin Naylor, told McClatchy News in an interview in July.
The species became protected in the state of Florida in 1992 and added to the endangered species list in 2003, Dean Grubbs, associate director of research at Florida State University’s Coastal and Marine Laboratory and part of the U.S. Smalltooth Sawfish Recovery Implementation Team, told McClatchy News in the same interview.
In June, Naylor and Grubbs captured a 13-foot sawfish off the coast of Cedar Key while leading a student course, marking the furthest north one of the critically endangered fish has been spotted in decades.
On Oct. 17, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute said it had recaptured a sawfish that was first tagged in 2016, and it had nearly doubled in size.
“We only have a few recaptures years after initial tagging, so those long-term recaptures help us learn about growth rates,” Greg Poulakis, a research associate with the FWC’s Fish and Wildlife Research Institute told McClatchy News on Oct. 17. “Every sawfish we tag is important for learning about this endangered species. They’re all pieces of a puzzle that help us promote recovery.”
Another part of that recovery is breeding the animals in captivity to help teach the public about sawfish conservation.
“SeaWorld Orlando is the second aquarium in the world to have a successful smalltooth sawfish birth; setting a new standard for expert care and conservation efforts,” SeaWorld said on Facebook.
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