Head to head
Largetooth Sawfish vs Swordfish
A sawfish and a swordfish both appear to have a long blade sticking out of the face, and the names get muddled, but they are only distantly related and live completely different lives. The sawfish is a ray, a flattened, bottom-dwelling relative of the stingray, with a saw edged in tooth-like denticles. The swordfish is a powerful, warm-muscled predator of the open sea with a smooth, flat, pointed bill.
| Largetooth Sawfish | Swordfish | |
|---|---|---|
| Group | A ray (batoid), related to stingrays and sharks | A bony fish, related to marlin and tuna |
| The blade | A cartilage rostrum lined with tooth-like denticles down both edges | A smooth, flattened bony bill, no teeth |
| What the blade does | Detects buried prey by electric sense; slashes to stun and impale fish | Slashes at prey; streamlines the head for high-speed swimming |
| Body shape | Flattened, shark-like tail, gills on the underside | Rounded, torpedo-shaped, with a tall crescent tail |
| Where it lives | Shallow coastal seas, estuaries, and rivers; on or near the bottom | The open ocean worldwide, surface to about 800 m |
| Size | Up to about 7 m including the saw | Up to about 4.5 m including the bill; up to 650 kg |
| Warm-blooded | No | Partly; it heats its eyes and brain for hunting in cold, deep water |
| Conservation | Critically Endangered; lost from much of its former range | Near Threatened; heavily fished but widespread |
Sawfish vs Swordfish: common questions
What is the difference between a sawfish and a swordfish?
Almost everything except the general idea of a fish with a blade on its face. A sawfish is a ray: flat-bodied, with gills underneath, living on the bottom in shallow water and rivers, and its blade is a flat rostrum with tough tooth-like structures along both edges. A swordfish is a fast bony fish of the open ocean, related to marlin, with a rounded body and a smooth, pointed bill and no teeth on it. They are not close relatives.
What do they use their swords for?
The sawfish uses its saw to find and catch food. Pores along it sense the tiny electric fields of fish and crustaceans hidden in the sand, and the sawfish also swipes the saw sideways through a school of fish, stunning or cutting them, then pins the prey to the bottom to eat it. The swordfish uses its bill mainly as a weapon, slashing sideways to injure fish and squid before eating them, and the streamlined shape also helps it swim fast.
Which one is endangered?
The sawfish. All sawfish species are Endangered or Critically Endangered, having disappeared from large parts of their former range because their toothed saws tangle easily in nets, their shallow-water and river habitats have been degraded, and their fins and saws were traded. The swordfish is listed as Near Threatened; some stocks have been overfished and rebuilt, but it remains widespread and is not at risk of extinction.