Cool Facts About Twins You Never Heard Before

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twin facts

I don’t know what it is about them, but I have always found twins fascinating. As I look around, I seem to see more and more twins these days. Celebrities are having them, YouTube features videos with them, and it seems like everyone is always going gaga over twins wearing matching outfits. However, there are plenty of fascinating facts about twins many of us are unaware of; like identical twins do not have the same fingerprints, or the fact the bond between twins starts even before the babies are born.

  1. Sorry they’re identical, not fraternal.

15 percent of identical twins are misdiagnosed as fraternal because each twin has its own placenta. However, the zygote can actually split within two days of fertilizing, which causes the placentas to create separately rather than sharing one.

  1. Twin Speak.

The YouTube Talking Twin Babies video isn’t the only set of twins to create a language. The Institute of General Linguistics conducted a study and found 40 percent of twins invent their own languages.

  1. I spy…your navel?

If you have identical twins, or have been around them, you know telling them apart from one another can be tricky. An easy way to distinguish them is by their belly buttons. Unlike other features or traits, belly buttons are actually scars resulting from the detaching of the umbilical cord. So everyone’s belly button is slightly unique.

  1. Lefty by nature.

Twins are nearly twice as likely to be left-handed than a single individual.

  1. Twins…or not.

Just because an embryo shares a womb with another embryo, doesn’t mean the babies are twins. There is actually an extremely rare condition known as superfetation. This causes a pregnant woman to continue to menstruate during her pregnancy, resulting in the conception of a second fetus.

  1. You were born when?

Not all twins share the same birthday. In fact, the longest recorded separation between twins being born is 87 days!

  1. Even statistics on twins are eerily symmetrical.

  • 50 % of all identical twins are male/male
  • 50 % are female/female

Fraternal twins who share the same sex have the same statistics. Plus to further the statistical symmetry:

  • 1/3 of all twins are identical
  • 1/3 are same sex fraternal twins, and
  • 1/3 are male/female fraternal twins.
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