Morphological Studies on the Lips of Buffalo

The study on buffalo lips, conducted on 20 buffalo heads, revealed that their morphological structure was well-adapted to their herbivorous feeding habits. The lips consisted of an outer thin skin with ordinary and tactile hair follicles, a middle layer of skeletal muscles, and an inner mucous membrane with stratified squamous keratinized epithelium. The nasolabial plate was primarily connective tissue with serous glands, featuring hexagonal areas and small gland openings similar to bovines. The mucous membrane had numerous labial gland openings, and the lips' free border had blunt papillae. Labial glands, concentrated at the labial commissure, were seromucoid and reacted positively to PAS and alcian blue, consistent with findings in large ruminants. The nasolabial glands were composed of lobules separated by connective tissue, fat, and muscle fibers, differing from previous studies that described them as mixed serous and mucous.