The extraordinary sawshark with a weapon-like snout

With the help of fishers in Madagascar and Tanzania, scientists named two new species of rare sixgill sawsharks

Dorsal, ventral and lateral views of a sawshark. Picture: Simon Weigmann/Natural History Museum

Swimming through the ocean are sharks that look as if they have a hedge trimmer fixed to their heads and a dangling moustache partway along it. These are sawsharks and they use their formidable headgear to slash through shoals of fish. The moustache is a sensory device that helps the sharks detect prey.

“Sawsharks are something extraordinary,” says Simon Weigmann from the Elasmobranch Research Laboratory in Hamburg, Germany.