[1] The rhombic lip can be divided into eight structural units based on rhombomeres 1-8 (r1-r8), which can be recognized at early stages of hindbrain development.

[2] Producing granule cells and five brainstem nuclei, the rhombic lip plays an important role in developing a complex cerebellar neural system.

His named this zone "rautenlippe," or rhombic lip, because it seemed to emanate from the rhomboid-shaped opening of the fourth ventricle, much like the shape of a mouth.

His proposed that the rhombic lip held the precerebellar precursors that would migrate ventrally to populate the pontine and olivary nuclei, but the methodologies available at the time limited the amount of evidence he could gather.

The first real evidence that precerebellar neurons had a dorsal origin was obtained in the 1990s through the use of chick-quail chimeras, a technique in which portions of quail hindbrain neuroepithelium are grafted into chick embryos in ovo.