Many will have been surprised to learn in the news that identical triplets born in Catalonia a few days ago have identical fingerprints.
Well, the surprising thing is that such a silly one has been said, because it is impossible for the fingerprint to be repeated exactly the same in two people, and less in three. In Genciencia they make it very clear.
To begin with, it is wrong to call them identical triplets when they are three twins, but we will deal with that later.
The tremendous mistake is to ensure that it is impossible to differentiate babies because they are identical to the point that they have the same fingerprints.
That is not only not true, but if so (which is impossible) it would become an unusual case in history, absolutely extraordinary. It's like saying that because they are twins they will have the same personality.
Although the brothers are genetically identical because they share the same genetic load as they have been conceived from an ovule and a sperm, their fingerprints are not.
As explained in MedTempus (also following the media gazapo), the formation of the papillary ridges during the first weeks of life inside the uterus is a combination of both genetic and environmental factors, which have more influence than the first.
These environmental factors are the exposure of the skin in formation to the amniotic fluid, the position of the baby in the womb, the movements that occur, blood pressure and nutrition, circumstances to which each baby is exposed differently.
Once the fingerprints error is explained, we will clarify that it is wrong to call them identical triplets or quadruplets, when what they are is twins because all (whether two, three or four) have been conceived from the same ovule and sperm that when becoming zygote it was divided into two and then three or four.
In contrast, the terms twins, triplets and quadruplets are used when they come from fertilization of different eggs.
