ABSTRACT Sawfishes of the genus Pristis are critically endangered rays with key ecological roles in aquatic ecosystems; however, they remain underrepresented in Brazilian scientific literature. This review presents a historical and bibliometric overview of sawfish literature in Brazil, highlighting temporal trends, geographic focus and thematic coverage. A systematic literature search identified 81 publications from 1648 to 2024, mostly citing sawfish peripherally within broader elasmobranch studies. Publications on sawfish in Brazil increased after the 2000s and peaked in 2017 and 2019. Most studies were conducted in northeastern Brazil, followed by northern, southeastern and southern Brazil. The most frequent topics included records of occurrence, ethnoichthyology, fishing and conservation, with notable gaps in the areas of molecular biology and population genetics. Historically, there are records of Pristis pristis and Pristis pectinata along the entire Brazilian coast, with P. pristis also being found in large river basins. Currently, their presence is restricted to a few states in the north. These results highlight the urgent need to expand and deepen research on the group, providing data that will help raise public awareness and improve management and conservation measures.
Silva et al. (Wed,) studied this question.