• Question: if two identical twins were born, and lived under the same conditions, all their lives, would they be completely identical?

    Asked by chivvy to Kat, Andrew, Katie, Sadaf on 18 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Andrew Swale

      Andrew Swale answered on 18 Jun 2013:


      Despite the term ‘identical twins’ they are not 100% identical. For example, identical twins have different fingerprints

      Identical twins occur when one ‘egg’ is fertilised to form one ‘zygote’. This then splits into two embryos.

      It is estimated that identical twins have approximately 360 genetic differences which occur in early development in the womb, once they are separate embryos

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