Genetics are just so weird and cool. Due to more recent stories about designer babies, people are paying attention again.
But genetics are a huge tangle of interconnected parts that even evolution hasn’t properly solved yet, as these people with rare genetic traits show us.
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Heterochromia is well-known for creating beautiful eyes.
Most of the time, we see pictures of people or animals with two differently colored eyes, but it can also appear as different rings around the pupil or split sections of the same iris.
It’s a shame that these natural elf ears usually go away with age.
Even if it doesn’t go away on its own, most doctors will recommend using a mold to force the cartilage into the correct shape as they grow.
I have a pointy bit on my right ear, but it’s not nearly as elf-like as this.
Icy white eyelashes are super pretty.
These white lashes appeared overnight for the poster and are caused by vitiligo. Both the top and bottom lashes in that section are white and sometimes they get white hairs in their eyebrow.
Flipping people off is much more fun with six fingers.
Polydactyl is a dominant trait, so it’s very likely that kids will inherit it from their parents. Reddit user the_cozy_one says that while their Dad kept all 12 fingers, they had surgery as a kid to remove the extra digits.
They both still have 12 toes, though.
If you have a white patch in your hair from birth, your child will likely also have it.
Piebaldism can also lead to pale patches of skin, but besides an increased chance of sunburn and related cancer risks, it has no health issues associated with it.
This little guy has Coloboma in both eyes.
Coloboma is a hole in part of the eye that is there at birth, though it sometimes can appear in the first few months of life. Depending on what part of the eye has the hole, vision problems could occur.
This person was born missing a fingernail.
I might have tried to downplay my hands out of self-consciousness, but she’s happy to paint the other nails. Which is awesome.
Because Reddit is Reddit, commenters requested the googly eyes.
Most of us have lots of lines on our palms, but not this hand.
Besides the creases due to the joints, this person only has one line on their otherwise smooth palm.
According to them, their dad and grandfather have it too.
This guy has freckles only on one side of his face.
The perfect edge makes it extra noticeable. Possibly, it’s caused by a specific type of speckled birthmark, which is what it was for a woman with a similar freckle mystery .
Being born with a scar in your eye like this can often cause vision problems.
Luckily, they say that their eyesight is 20/20 and they can just enjoy the really beautiful, alien effect the scar has on their iris.
Okay, this is both awesome and disturbing.
A “fimbriated fold of tongue” isn’t anything to worry about. It’s just some leftover tissue that stuck around after the tongue formed.
For most, it’s just a small ridge or bumps. For a few, they look like tentacles and can even get stuck in your lower teeth.
This guy is double jointed in all of his fingers.
As cool and weird as this is, it can be a sign of other issues. According to him, he’s already developing degenerative joint disease in his knee and says that he’s even had his shoulders dislocate in his sleep. Ouch!
Speaking of nipples, this guy doesn’t have any.
Lack of one or both nipples can be a symptom of a number of genetic disorders related to development of the body.
Not all elf ears are “fixed” in infancy.
I would argue that this is pretty neat and I’d be glad if my own ears had a proper point.
But then again, I am a giant nerd.
The “whites” of this person’s eyes are blue.
This is caused when the collagen fibers in the sclera are unusually thin and transparent, allowing the blue from the veins below to show through. It can be a marker for other genetic disorders.
This baby was born with a couple of teeth already.
Let’s take a moment of silence for that poor mother who’s going to have very sore nipples right off the bat. I wonder if teething in general is sped up when this happens.
Hands and feet seem to be common places for wonky genes, perhaps because they’re so complicated.
This person was born without a thumb, so doctors surgically moved their index finger to allow them to grip things more naturally.
These lovely ladies are twins.
Their mother is half-Jamaican and their father is white. Because of their mom’s mixed heritage, she carries the genes for both skin tones and each embryo happened to get one set.
Extra ribs aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.
This guy had no idea that he had two extra ribs up around his collarbone until he was rushed to the hospital with arm pain. It turned out that one of the extra ribs was pressing on the main artery to his arm and had caused a blockage.
The average number of wisdom teeth is four. This person was born with nine.
Yeesh. That X-ray doesn’t look like it belongs to a human. Definitely an alien.
I was born without wisdom teeth, which is cool, but also makes me feel a bit like I’ve missed a right of passage in never having to get them removed.
And now for a quick PSA.
You may have heard of “Alexandria’s Genesis,” a genetic mutation that basically makes a person perfect and is marked by purple eyes. Sadly, it’s a myth .
My favorite part of this confusion is that the mutation originates from a piece of ’90s Daria fanfiction.
Bonuses and bonuses.
Not only did this person get extra fingers and toes, they got them in different forms. Having extra digits is called polydactyly. Have digits connected, as with this person’s middle fingers, is known as syndactyly.
This person was born with only a thumb and pinky on one hand.
The lack of middle fingers is from a condition called amniotic band syndrome, and it has proven to be useful both for this party game, and in wrestling, where this person claimed the traditional handshake before the match could really throw an opponent off.
This person can grip things backwards.
Which is one heck of a good party trick. There’s double-jointed, and then there’s hypermobile. This is downright mesmerizing.
This person has five fingers and no thumbs.
It’s a result of a condition called Holt-Oram syndrome, and he says he’s undefeated in thumb wars so far. “No one can reach mine and I reach yours easily.”
Now here’s an amazing coincidence.
“My dad’s index tip was cut off when he was 10, my index is shorter than my pinky,” the uploader explained. Obviously you can’t inherit a chopped-off finger, so this person was just born with an abnormality that happened to line up perfectly.
There are a surprising number of benefits to not having a bridge in your nose.
This person says that he’s never had a nosebleed, and that hitting his schnoz on something doesn’t hurt too badly. You do have to wonder what it’s like to blow your nose without a bridge though, right?
This person was born without a joint in their middle finger.
And you know what that’s good for — fewer wrinkles. Bet you thought I was going to say something else.
This person’s left foot stopped growing bones before reaching the four smallest toes.
However, apparently there’s at least some cartilage in there, so they’re not completely floppy. But still, it tends to make for one loose shoe.
