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Some fish have unusually thick lips because their mouth shape may help them find and handle food. In certain African cichlids, researchers propose that fleshy lips cushion the mouth as the fish presses against rough rocks to pull prey from crevices. Other large-lipped fish use their lips in different ways, so there is no single explanation for the trait.
How thick lips may help African cichlids forage
In cichlids from Lakes Victoria, Malawi and Tanganyika, researchers have proposed that thick lips act as a cushion while fish forage against rocky surfaces. The lips may protect the mouth as a fish pushes into crevices to reach prey. This is an ecological explanation supported by the fishes’ feeding habits, not a proven function for every large-lipped species. Science Tokyo’s 2026 report describes the proposed function and the tissues found in the studied cichlids.
What the lips are made of
The studied cichlid lips have an inner collagen-rich layer and an expanded outer layer rich in water-retaining proteoglycans. The report also describes high levels of versican and periostin, along with activated Wnt signaling. The researchers suggest Wnt signaling promotes proteoglycan accumulation. These tissue and gene-activity findings help explain how thick lips develop; on their own, they do not prove why the trait evolved.
Changes associated with thick-lip development were already present in juveniles in the cichlids described by Science Tokyo, so the trait is not something that appears only in adulthood.
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Large lips can suit different diets and feeding styles
Fish do not all use enlarged lips for the same task. A 2022 study compared 14 pacu and piranha species and found that frugivorous pacus had larger, more complex lips, while grazing species had callused lips covered in mucus. The authors discuss pacu lips as part of food manipulation. The comparison points to different lip forms associated with different feeding ecologies, rather than one universal role. The study is indexed by PubMed.
Thick lips come with a feeding tradeoff
In Lake Malawi cichlids, hypertrophied lips have been associated with better extraction of prey from crevices, but poorer capture of evasive prey in open water. A mouth suited to reaching prey tucked into rock may therefore be less effective at catching fast-moving prey in a different setting. The trait is not an all-purpose improvement. A 2022 study in Genome Biology and Evolution examines repeated evolution of hypertrophied lips among Lake Malawi cichlids.
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The trait evolved more than once
Similar thick lips evolved independently in cichlids across Lakes Victoria, Malawi and Tanganyika. This repeated emergence is called parallel evolution: related fish in different settings develop a similar trait, rather than inheriting it once from a single recent ancestor with that form.
Thick lips are not unique to cichlids. A 2023 study examined repeated origins of hypertrophied lips in Ethiopian highland Labeobarbus, another group of fish. The study in Ecology and Evolution provides another example of the trait arising in separate fish lineages.
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Can the environment affect lip development?
A 2021 study of the vacuum-cleaner cichlid, Gnathochromis permaxillaris, examined gene regulation associated with localized lip hypertrophy. It also reported that captive-raised fish develop the phenotype to a lesser extent, suggesting possible plasticity in this particular species. That finding does not establish that captivity or environmental conditions affect thick lips in all fish. The study is available through BMC Genomics and PubMed Central.
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