Atlanticopristis
| Atlanticopristis | |
|---|---|
| Hypothetical life reconstruction based on relatives | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Chondrichthyes |
| Subclass: | Elasmobranchii |
| Order: | Rajiformes |
| Suborder: | †Sclerorhynchoidei |
| Genus: | †Atlanticopristis Pereira & Medeiros, 2008 |
| Species: | †A. equatorialis |
| Binomial name | |
| †Atlanticopristis equatorialis Pereira & Medeiros, 2008 | |
Atlanticopristis (meaning "Atlantic saw") is an extinct genus of sclerorhynchoid that lived during the Late Cretaceous (Cenomanian) of what is now the Northeast Region of Brazil, between 100.5 and 93.9 million years ago. It contains a single species, Atlanticopristis equatorialis, originally assigned to the closely related genus Onchopristis.
Similar to modern sawfish, it would have had a long snout armed with modified fish scales shaped into "teeth", but the rostral denticles of Atlanticopristis had barbs on both sides. Atlanticopristis inhabited fresh to brackish water estuaries near large conifer forests, and lived in the same time and place as many species of bony fish, cartilaginous fish, and lobe finned fish, as well as some crocodilians, and several dinosaurs. Many of the taxa present in the Alcântara Formation are also known from the same-aged Kem Kem Beds in Morocco, due to the past connection of South America and Africa into the supercontinent Gondwana.