Bilateral asymmetry in craniofacial structures and kinematics of feeding attacks in the scale-eating cichlid fish, <i>Perissodus</i> <i>microlepis</i>.

ABSTRACT: Cichlid fishes are a textbook example for adaptive radiations, since they diversified into several hundred highly specialized species in each of three great East African lakes. Even scale-eating, an extremely specialized feeding mode, evolved independently multiple times in these radiations and in Lake Tanganyika alone, six endemic scale-eating species occupy this extremely specialized ecological niche. Perissodus microlepis went a step further, by evolving bilaterally asymmetrical heads with an intra-specific polymorphism where left- and right-headed morphs predominantly scrape scales from the opposite sides of their prey. While the bilateral asymmetry of scale-eating cichlids has been known, exactly which craniofacial features explain the laterality of the heads remained un

SUBMITTER: Tian X 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12000126 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature