Identical Twins

Today’s question is something I have wondered before I even took up biology in my college. Probably you have thought of it at some point in time too. Without further ado, let’s have a look at the question at hand:

Do Identical Twins Have the Same Fingerprints?

Unsurprisingly, they don’t! You think the Government is a fool to record your fingerprints, huh? Then why is this question interesting?

Identical (scientifically: monozygotic) twins are individuals born from the same fertilized egg. As they form from the same zygote, they have virtually indistinguishable DNA. Suppose your identical twins commits a murder and leaves their DNA on the crime scene. Between the two of you, the forensic analysis won’t be able to distinguish who was the killer! The case for fingerprints, however, is different.

Not only no two people have the same fingerprints. Even, the prints of all your fingers differ from each other. This is the case as fingerprints are not purely genetic. The genes coding for a fingerprint might be the same, but the environment (inside the mother’s womb) where the fingers develop are quite different. This leads to a very distinct pattern on all of the fingers and a difference on the pattern of fingerprints even for identical twins.
In cases involving twins, police tend to depend more on the fingerprint data as compared to DNA evidence.

If you ever encounter a pair of identical twins in your life, take their fingerprints and see it for yourself. Don’t forget to write to me about it!