Fraternal Twins vs. Identical Twins

Key Differences


Comparison Chart
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Genetic Makeup
Appearance
Gender
Probability
Reasons
Blood Group

What are Fraternal Twins?
Fraternal Twins are the kind of twins that found mostly all around the world. Fraternal twins cover up over two-third total world population of the twins. Twins are the offspring that are born together at the same time. There could be a difference of minutes or hours but not more than that. Many people worldwide only consider the babies that are totally similar in physical appearance as twins, which is a totally wrong concept. Fraternal twins are the kind of twins that possess totally different physical appearance and different gender even. Fraternal twins even can have variations in their genotypes as well. Fraternal twins are born in the result of two different sperms fusing with two different eggs at the same time forming two different kinds of the zygote. In the normal cases, fertilization of one egg (female cell) and one sperm (male cell) results in the formation of a single zygote that then further develop into embryo then into a baby. In the case of fraternal twins, two different sperms fuse with two different eggs at the same time and start forming two zygotes. That’s why fraternal twins are referred as ‘Dizygotic’ as they possess two different zygotes at the same time when in the development stages. Later on, these zygotes separately develop into an embryo and complete gestation period before delivering the offspring.
What are Identical Twins?
Identical twins are the most famous and rare kind of twins that are found all around the globe without any influence of geographical area. About one-third of world’s twin population consist of identical twins. As the name depicts clearly, these twins are totally identical regarding their physical appearance as well as they possess the same sort of genotype. Although there could be minor differences in their physical appearance and that could be because of various factors such as environment etc. In the case of identical twins, there is not a fusion of two eggs with two different sperms, whereas one sperm fuses a single egg. That egg than after fusion and forming a zygote divides into two equal portions, from which each zygote part further develops into two different embryos. Identical twins have similar sort of blood groups all the time. Their nature and habits are quite similar along with their physical appearance.