‘Prehistoric’ shark relative with 32 exterior teeth discovered in Florida

This was a discovery they could really sink their teeth into.

A rare smalltooth sawfish, considered a “prehistoric” shark relative with an eye-popping 32 teeth affixed to its exterior, was recently spotted in Florida.

A team from the University of North Florida’s Shark Biology program — exploring the St. Mary’s River, which runs from Florida to Georgia — happened upon the distinct 10-foot creature, which is part of a critically endangered species that evolved from primitive sharks now extinct.

“It was the heaviest thing I’d pulled on a drum line. When I pulled it, I was thinking: ‘Wouldn’t it be funny if it was a sawfish,'” University of North Florida professor Jim Gelsleichter told USA Today .

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The group caught and then released the sawfish on July 16, after determining it was young, not fully matured and also male, since it had claspers, or appendages under its abdomen.

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Legally, the endangered fish must be released.

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The creature, one of five kinds of sawfish, is part of a species of elasmobranch, which includes rays, skates and sharks. They do not have any bones, only cartilage, and can measure up to 16-feet long.

They get their name from their lengthy, flat snout edged with teeth that resembles a saw.

Once seen spanning Texas to North Carolina coasts, the smalltooth sawfish population rapidly plummeted between 1950 and 2000 with sightings reduced to just Florida’s waters, according to NOAA Fisheries , the government authority on the management of fish.

In 2003, the authority listed the US population of smalltooth sawfish as an endangered species under the Endangered Species Act, which made it the first marine fish to receive federal protection.

Earlier this month a father and son caught a 12-foot sawfish off Port Canaveral in Florida.

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