• Journal of Marine Life Science
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.8-17
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• 2016

The family Pristiophoridae belonging to the order Pristiophoriformes consists of about 8 species and 2 genera in the world. Among them, only one species (Pristiophorus japonicus) is distributed in northwestern Pacific. The family is characterized by having an elongated and flattened rostrum with laterally projecting a low of sharp teeth. In order to clarify variability of local populations of P. japonicus, we investigated 16 individuals collected from four locations (Korea, n=6; Miyagi, n=1; Kochi Pref., n=1; Okinawa, n=8) for morphological and molecular analyses. Morphological analysis showed that there may exist three morphotypes, of which A morphotype (Korea, Miyagi, Kochi Pref.) has a short snout (26.8% of TL), being most similar to syntypes of P. japonicus. On the other hand, B morphotype (Okinawa) has a long (31.7% of TL) and wider snout (snout width at nostrils 5.2 times pre-oral length) and, C morphotype (Okinawa) has a long (31.7% of TL) and narrower snout (6.3 times). Molecular analysis using mitochondrial DNA cytochrome b DNA sequences (386 base pairs) showed that the K2P distance between A and C morphotypes were 2.1~2.7%, but those within A morphotype were 0.0~0.5%. We identified A morphotype as P. japonicus, and designated B and C morphotypes as Pristiophorus sp. 1 and Pristiophorus sp. 2, respectively. Further studies are required to elucidate the taxonomic status of two morphotypes of the sawshark in Okinawa.