No two fingerprints are the same, making them a great way to identify people in criminal investigations. But what about identical twins?
Dr Scott Chadwick is a fingermark detection expert. His research focuses on optimising fingermark detection techniques and revealing fingermarks on the most challenging surfaces.
Expert Dr Scott Chadwick busts the twins and fingerprints myth on a recent episode of Crime Insiders:
You might see whorls, loops or arches when you look at your fingertips.
Whorls look like “little circles with larger circles coming from the centre”, Chadwick says, whereas loops come from one side of the finger and loop in the centre. Arches look like a little speed bump.
“If we recover a whorl at a crime scene and our particular suspect only has loops, we can exclude them from further investigation.”
Various genetic factors form fingerprints, but variations are also made while in the womb.
This means even though identical twins have the same DNA sequence, their fingerprints are slightly different.
Chadwick said while twins can have very similar prints, random pressures during fetal development in the womb make their fingerprints unique.
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