XL 2.2" Sawfish Fossil Tooth Barb Onchopristis Numidus Cretaceous Dinosaur Era COA

Location: Oued Zem, Morocco

Weight: 0.2 Ounces

Dimensions: 2.2 Inches Long, 0.9 Inches Wide, 0.4 Inches Thick 

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Cretaceous Dinosaur Era 100 Million years ago.

Onchopristis is a giant sawfish that lived in the oceans during the Upper Cretaceous Period. A considerable number of these giant fish were found in the Sahara Desert. Onchopristis has unique characteristics that make it an impressive sawfish specimen: Its long 2.5-meter long rostrum has sharp and lethal barbs that stick on the side. In fact, its name means Giant Saw because its barbed rostrum resembles a giant saw. A strict crustacean eater, Onchopristis would have used its rostrum to unearth crustaceans at the bottom of shallow waters like present sawfish today. Although it is an ocean-dwelling fish, fossil evidence suggested that, like salmon, schools of Onchopristis would migrate into freshwater rivers in the mainland to breed. The females would then lay their eggs in these shallow waters, where the young would-be safer from predators. However, the adults are exposed to new threats: Spinosaurus hunted this giant sawfish occasionally during Onchopristis migration and mating season. Many of these sawfishes were fished out to be eaten wastefully by Spinosaurus and its relatives with scavengers who would take full advantage of the scraps of wasted food. Onchopristis would have had to rely on its numbers to survive their perilous journey from and back to the protection of the ocean. Fossil evidence of puncture marks on the sawfish's rostrum made by Spinosaurus is common. There has even been a barb found stuck in the upper jaw of a spinosaurid! Though common in freshwater rivers during mating season, common droughts only brought Onchopristis to low numbers. In the episode " Giant Killers" a Spinosaurus catches several Onchopristis and eats them wastefully.