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Journal of Paleontology

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A PARTIAL ROSTRUM OF THE SAWFISH PRISTIS LATHAMI GALEOTTI, 1837, FROM THE EOCENE OF SOUTH CAROLINA

¹ Bob Campbell Geology Museum, Clemson University, 103 Garden Trail, Clemson, South Carolina 29634, <dcheech@clemson.edu>

The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below.

	INTRODUCTION

 
SAWFISHES OF the family Pristidae comprise a group of rays having dorsoventrally flattened, sharklike bodies and elongated rostra bearing a row of teeth on each side. Some species may attain total body lengths (TL) of 7 m or more (Compagno and Last, 1999). Unlike the similarly-shaped sawsharks of the family Pristiophoridae, the number of rostral teeth and their proportions are established in utero and maintained into adulthood (Slaughter and Springer, 1968; Miller, 1974), and if a tooth is lost the alveolus remains empty. In addition, the gills are located on the underside of the body and there are no rostral barbels (Tricas et al., 1997; Compagno and Last, 1999). Recent Pristidae consists of five to seven species (depending on synonymy) within two genera, Pristis (Linck, 1790) and Anoxypristis (White and Moy-Thomas, 1941).

Although oral teeth and partial rostra have been described (Casier, 1949; Cappetta, 1987), remains of fossil pristids consist primarily of rostral teeth. It is quite possible, therefore, that the apparent species diversity, often based on relatively few specimens, is exaggerated (see Casier, 1949). Cappetta (1987) reported that the temporal distribution of the genus Pristis extends from the Early Eocene (Ypresian) to Recent, and published records indicate that the extinct species, P. lathami (Galeotti, 1837), was limited to the Eocene (see below). However, Case (1994) described fragmentary specimens from Louisiana that indicate Pristis occurred as early as the Late Paleocene.

In North America, Pristis lathami has been reported from the Eocene of Alabama (White, 1956; Thurmond and Jones, 1981), Arkansas (Westgate, 1984), Georgia (Müller, 1999; Case and Borodin, 2000a; Westgate, 2001), Louisiana (Manning and Standhardt, 1986), Maryland (Ward . . . [Full Text of this Article]