Labiatophysa is a genus of Central Asian stone loaches recorded in the atlas from Kazakhstan and China, consistent with the Ili-Balkhash river system that straddles the two countries' shared border region. The genus name points to a distinguishing feature - fleshy, well-developed lips - and, like other nemacheilid stone loaches in this part of Central Asia, its species are elongate, bottom-dwelling fish adapted to cold, fast-flowing or braided river channels, using their lips and barbels to forage among gravel and sand for aquatic invertebrates.
At 3.5–9 in, Labiatophysa runs on the larger side for a stone loach genus. Neither Labiatophysa herzensteini nor L. labiata is established in the aquarium hobby; both are little-known outside regional ichthyological surveys of the Ili-Balkhash basin. The atlas records one species as Least Concern and the other as Vulnerable, a split consistent with the general pressure on Central Asian river systems from water abstraction and damming, even where population data for individual species remain limited.