Why do human beings have lips? What is it's purpose?

Question

If we didn't have lips we would still be able to survive right? So what's the point of them?

Answer 1

Lots of animals have lips, not just human beings. They likely serve a variety of purposes, but a simplified answer might be that they allow an organism more control over what goes in and out of the mouth, including vocal sounds. They can close to make an airtight seal, to keep harmful substances out and allow us to more easily hold our breath. They allow us to test the temperature or texture of things before we pop them in our mouths. They facilitate language, especially in humans. Also in humans, they are imprortant in a variety of social activities, kissing being a big one!

Answer 2

They are highly sensitive so they can detect properties of potential food sources like temperature and texture before ingestion.  They can also mechanically grip and manipulate food.  

However I think their main purpose of our lips is to enclose the muscles that can open, close or change the shape of the opening of the mouth.  Those muscles are very strong, and can firmly close the mouth to prevent intake of sand, water, insects, etc., or can widely open the mouth to take in food.

Answer 3

So we  can sip wine and not just chug beer Also so that potentialy we can all speak French.C'est vrai. N'est ce pas >

Answer 4

Both lips are soft, protruding, movable, and serve primarily for food intake, as a tactile sensory organ, and in articulation of speech.

Answer 5

Interesting! I never considered this but my guess, probably not relevant, is that even simple cell animals have some sort of opening to ingest sustenance if they could not absorb this through the cell wall.

I guess that lips on any animal are the evolved version of this early opening. We have also evolved to use them for communication purposes as I have seen horses do when they whinny. Howler monkeys and other primates form an "O" vowel lip formation, when they howl.

But then again, what do I know? I suppose some research might be warranted if we really want to know what anthropologists anatomists think.

Answer 6

lips help us talk and eat i think....... i have a realy wierd image of somone without out any lips in my head thankyou you have now freaked me out

Answer 7

Lips are necessary for many things,

1) word pronunciation

2) keeping food in your mouth when eating

3) preventing your mouth from drying out when closed, if you had no lips, then all you would have are teeth sticking out all over the place and the inside of your mouth would get dried out easily and all sorts of bugs, germs,  lent, and particles could get into your mouth.

4) lips are a sensory organ. Have you ever seen the HOMONCULUS?  It's a weird looking drawing of a person, making huge all the important sensory (touch, feel, etc.) organs in the body. The lips on the homunculus are really prominent. Ever wonder why people kiss with the lips and not another body part. It's the same as a hand shake or high five. The hands and lips are greeting, sensory organs.

5) Lips also serve as a kind of structural support for the human face. People that are really beautiful (of the past and present) have very structured, and full lips. Think of  Liya Kebede, Brigitte Bardot, Iman, Aisha Rai, and Gene Tierney.

6) Lips are also used to convey facial expressions. Fear, anger, love, and happiness. Researchers say, when people get excited or see someone they like, automatically the lips of males and females, slightly darken because of a rush of blood to the mouth area, and the lips get slightly larger.

I'll post that research article soon on yahoo answers.

Answer 8

we define the sensitive/muscular part of our face the lips.  It is just extra sensors/muscle of the skin.  nothing more.

Answer 9

they protect the mouth from things flying into them. if there were no lips, the mouth would be full of blisters from hard tissue rubbing against each other.

Answer 10

Because lips, genitalia and nipples consist of similar erectile tissue, they are also a sexual advertisement!

Answer 11

It helps our mouth to stop drying out, our teeth from rotting and falling out (so we would still be able to feed ourselves properly, very important if you want to survive), keeps refluxes in, ... need I go on?

And of course, it's a nice thing to kiss rather than cold and hard teeth...

Answer 12

Mouth, present o*****e in most of the animals, through as interferes the food and sounds are emitted to communicate. Many protozoos, like the amoebas, ingest the food surrounding it and including it in their interior. Other protozoos, like paramecio, have several openings affluent delimited in which the food is introduced by currents, caused by the cilia. The structure of the mouth on a par begins to be more complex than tracto is developed digestive. As the invertebrates do not make oral digestion, the mouth is not an organ very specialized, is only one small opening. Nevertheless, the mouth of the vertebrates is characterized by the presence of the lips or you fold fleshy that border the entrance, the teeth and the language. In the human beings, the mouth is formed by two cavities: the buccal cavity, between the lips and cheeks and the frontal of the teeth, and the oral cavity, between the inner part of the teeth and the pharynx. The parótidas glands salivares spill in the buccal cavity and the other glands salivares in the oral cavity. Paladar of the oral cavity is of bone, is hard in the frontal and fibrous and softer part in the later part. The sky of the mouth finishes behind, to the height of the pharynx, in several you fold loose and membranosos.

Answer 13

The sound of response to something that generates wonderment.  Silence is golden but a response generates co-existment in contact of one another.