The convergent evolution of the pelvic suction cup: A unique key innovation in spiny-finned fishes
Key innovations open ecological opportunities and can redirect evolutionary trajectories. In spiny-finned fishes, the pelvic suction cup-a fused adhesive structure formed from the pelvic fins and supported by a modified girdle-appears to be one such trait. Using a novel 960-species phylogeny spanning 940 exons and 67 newly sequenced snailfish genomes, we show that the suction cup evolved independently three times across lineages separated by over 100 million years. By enabling adhesion in high-energy habitats such as tide pools and waterfalls, the suction cup set the stage for body depression and accompanying shifts in scales, teeth, and clade-specific ecofunctional profiles. Comparative analyses reveal convergence in a distinctive region of morphospace and body-shape evolution accelerated two- to fivefold. Diversification analyses uncover heterogeneous but elevated rates, with a clear burst in rock-climbing gobies associated with suction cup evolution. By opening novel habitats and fostering phenotypic novelty, the suction cup emerges as a key innovation that reshaped spiny-finned fish evolution.
Authors
- Lily C. Hughes (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4006-4036)
- Dahiana Arcila (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5126-1345)
- Masaki Miya (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9791-9886)
- Ricardo Betancur‐R (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9512-5011)
- Elizabeth Christina Miller (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6856-3107)
- Guillermo Ortı́ (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6886-2323)
- Carmen del R. Pedraza-Marrón (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2692-4610)
- Thomas D. Linley (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6583-3105)
- Aintzane Santaquiteria (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7046-6434)
- S Pirro (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5642-4203)
- Carole C. Baldwin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2875-0474)
- Luke Tornabene (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0673-2320)
- Aline P. M. Medeiros (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7272-4441)
- William T. White (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9705-2453)
- James W. Orr (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6631-9087)
- Emily P. McFarland
Institutions
- Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (NZ)
- Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (AU)
- North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences (US)
- American Museum of Natural History (US)
- National Museum of Natural History (US)
- North Carolina State University (US)
- Scripps Institution of Oceanography (US)
- University of California, Merced (US)
- George Washington University (US)
- University of Washington (US)
- University of California, Irvine (US)
- University of California San Diego (US)
- Iridian Genomes (US)
- Australian National Fish Collection (AU)
- The Ohio State University (US)
- University of Oklahoma (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Science Advances
- Published
- 2026-09-04
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aeh7851
- Primary Topic
- Adhesion, Friction, and Surface Interactions
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- National Science Foundation