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Contents:

1.Introduction2.Identical and fraternal twins3.Differences between identical andfraternal twins4.Different ways in which cell divisioncan occur in twins5.Conjoined twins6.Types of conjoined twins7.Bibliography

Introduction

At least everybody knows some one or knows of someone who is atwin, but none of us really ever stop to think about why there aretwins and how are they formed What processes does it involve?how many types of twins can we have? What are conjoinedtwins?etc.Here is an attempt to explain what twinning is, and to explain thevarious questions related to it.Basically there are two types of twins:

Identical twins:Monozgotic twins, having a very similar genetic make-up, are always the same sex, have the same blood type, and usually look very similar. There areexceptions though. Some identical twins do not have theexact same genetic composition. The rate of identicaltwinning shows little variation with the mother’s age butidentical twins occur approximately once out of 250 births.

Fraternal twins:.

Dizgotic or fraternal twins are twice as morecommon than identical twins. These twins arise frommultiple ovulation. Normally, just a single ovum is releasedfrom an ovaryeach month. When more than a single ovum isreleased it is called multiple ovulation. If all of the ova arefertilized, genetically dissimilar twins or higher multiplesmay occur. Dizgotic twins usually do not share anymoresimilarities than would be expected with any siblings.Fraternal twins often have a different gender, blood type andother characteristics. Studies also show that the rate of fraternal twinning increases with the mother’s age.Then there can be polar body twinsalso, which are very rare.