This is the second special issue on cichlid evolution hosted by the International Journal of Evolutionary Biology. Once more, we are overwhelmed by the vivid responses to our call for contributions, and thank the authors for their great work. The thirteen papers in this issue, including two reviews, span geographically from Africa to South America and address a wide variety of evolutionary topics including speciation and hybridization, phenotype evolution, and reproductive behaviour. Papers are summarized below in the order in which they appear in this special issue.