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It’s estimated that around 80% of the world’s population has black hair and brown eyes. These features are just as beautiful as any other traits, but they might not immediately catch your eye if you’re used to seeing them every day. Meanwhile, if you happen to encounter someone who has extremely rare physical features, you might never forget how they look.
Redditors have recently been discussing the most unique physical characteristics they’ve ever seen on another person, so we’ve gathered their most fascinating replies below. From rare medical conditions to having extra fingers or toes, this list just goes to show how complex the human body truly is. Enjoy scrolling through, and be sure to upvote the features that you’ve never seen before!
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#1
From seventh grade on I went to school with a guy named Mark who had Ichthyosis. It’s a horrible disease where his skin was so dry it would come off in big flakes, and it was pretty gross. The kids of course called him Cornflake and he was severely bullied. My best friend and I took pity on him and didn’t treat him like some kind of monster - which a lot of kids did - and stood up for him whenever we could. This went on for all of junior and high school. Lost track of Mark after school but one day I was standing in line at Winn-Dixie when I hear from behind me “Well, well, well, of it isn’t itimedout! I turned around and there’s Mark, looking gruesome as ever but his eyes were light and he was happy to see me and I was happy to see him! We chatted while we waited, he said he had his own business working from home doing something, not married but still had his mom and dad. He said he often thought of school and me and my best friend. I told him same. Mark is a super nice guy, he’s sweet and funny but got dealt the [worst] hand ever and I hope I made life a tiny bit better for him because he actually taught me a lot.
Littlemiss 12 hours ago
Ichthyosis runs in my family, so grateful it skipped my son. It's awful.
RELATED:
#2
I have a niece who had a brain scan in her teen years after a kind of weird episode at school. They determined that more than half of the white matter in her brain was missing. The doctor said he was amazed she was even able to sit upright, let alone function otherwise. She had been an A student till then, and after a lot of testing they found a few autoimmune possibilites, but never nailed down the cause of the brain tissue loss. Doctors figured that her brain just developed alternate pathways. She has some "quirky" general behaviors, but has grown into a sweet woman who now has 5 kids. The brain is an amazing thing.
#3
Guy in HS had 3 texticles. He was named E.T. the extra testicle.
#4
I have a birth mark running from my chin towards my neck that looks like a little pink caterpillar and I’ve never seen anyone with the same kind of birth mark. Usually kids notice it and when they ask what it is, I tell them it’s where my human suit zips up.
#5
Rarest physical feature: a girl with two thumbs on one hand.
I was the new kid in 7th grade, sitting near the back of the bus with high schoolers. They dragged me into a debate by asking if a girl was pretty. She was.
Then she asked, “How about now?” and slapped her hand on my leg. That’s when I saw it — two thumbs.
I froze and said, “Even better!”
The whole bus erupted, she smiled, and went back to her seat.
#6
Bartending. Guy comes in and tells me I need to give him a free shot if he showed me something weird.
Said ok, sure, let's see it.
Dude slips off a Birkenstock sandal and right under the top band of the sandal, he had an extra toe just growing there in the centre of the top of his foot. A regular sized toe with a toenail and all.
He wiggled the weird extra toe, then the rest of his toes, and then he asked for the shot.
I obliged. No charge for that shot.
Jane Doe-Doe 16 hours ago
My grandson was born with 12 toes, one was removed but the other one was left there so now he has 11 toes
#7
In my teenage years, I worked at an outdoor activity centre that specialised in physically and mentally disabled clients.
One lad, Jonny, who was about my age and lived locally, used to come for occasional respite weekends, but couldn’t do any activity.
He had a horrible condition called dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa, which meant his skin broke open or detached at the lightest of touches.
Despite living with that, he was a lovely lad, incredibly funny, and later in his life there was a documentary made about him called
The Boy Whose Skin Fell Off.
It’s worth an hour of anyone’s time.
#8
I went to school with twin sisters who were identical in every way - except for their eyes.
Both of them had heterochromia, but their eye colours were strikingly different to each other.
Twin one had a green right eye and blue left eye. Twin two meanwhile had a hazel right eye and a blue-grey left eye.
#9
I knew a guy with a tail. It was an extension of his spine- normally absorbed during development he said.
Bajadasaurus:
A girl I worked with grabbed my hand and shoved it down the back of her pants to "show" me her tail. It was at least four inches long, and crooked. She could wiggle it. I was traumatized.
#10
My Irish grandmother never had grey hair. Jet black until the day she died in her 80's.
Apparently its a rare condition that some Irish and Native American can have. None of us inherited the gene unfortunately.
Chris the Bobcat 14 hours ago
I'm 52 and still have dark brown hair. The irony is I've wanted my hair to turn white since I was seven years old. I don't complain, as I'm just happy to still have a full head of hair.
#11
Every few years the memory pops into my head of this small child I saw at the supermarket once. He was about four or five years old, and had hypertrichosis on one side of his body only. One side was completely covered in dark brown soft-looking hair, over his face, arm, leg, everything - but the other side was normal, split perfectly down the middle. I always wonder how he’s doing, feel bad for staring but I was only a kid myself. Genuinely was one of the most fascinating people I ever saw.
#12
Almost albino feller had hair color split down the middle, black one side and blond other - except his eyebrows were opposite. Also had two different eye colors but I don’t remember the arrangement.
#13
When I was in high school, I worked at McDonald’s. We had a regular customer who had a blue head. He was bald. His entire head was blue. His hands were normal color. I understand this can happen when someone ingests too much colloidal silver.
DrKittyLovah:
There is also a genetic issue that can cause blue skin called methemoglobinemia, look up the Blue Fugates from Kentucky for examples.
#14
I know a woman with black hair who has a birthmark on her head that causes the hair in that spot to grow in blonde.
#15
I had an elderly neighbor. Her husband passed and I looked after her and helped her with yard work and household stuff. She had Neurofibromatosis. Her entire body was covered in bumps of various sizes from the size of peppercorns to marbles.
One night my phone rang at like 2am and she had fallen down the stairs. How she happened to have the phone nearby is a mystery- this was before cell phones. I went over and there she was, poor thing, wearing nothing, laying on the floor. It’s a sight I’ll never forget. Got her dressed and to the hospital. She had 2 daughters, 1 close by and one far away. Why she called me I don’t know.
She [passed away] about 2 years later and left me a bunch of things in her will. Her daughters were pissed!
Saltypepper 12 hours ago
You are a sweet angel to be so good to someone with this awful affliction it's painful and people stare and are rude to you ,from someone with NF I know what it's like ,very rare to find someone who looks beyond the bumps
#16
I worked with someone who had orangey red hair and eyes that were the exact same color. He did not wear contacts.
D'oh Rae is Me 22 minutes ago
My neice has red hair and amber eyes. Pastey pink skin, but no freckles. She's a genetic mish-mash of Northern European and Ulster Scot.
#17
I had a friend whose father had 6 fingers on both hands. He played the piano beautifully!!!
falcon5services:
Worked with a guy who had six fingers on one hand. Fully functional too, it actually helped him grip tools better.
Julie Rogers 13 hours ago
Someone here claimed this can be caused by incest. That's not true. Extreme inbreeding can increase the likelihood of recessive genetic disorders, but common polydactyly usually appears spontaneously or is inherited from parents. And it is relatively common, but many extra fingers are removed so we don't see it often.
#18
Knew a kid that had 2 pupils in one eye that same eye was also 2 different colors.
Jenna Kay 13 hours ago (edited)
I have black spots in both my irises, caused by eye disease. Freaks people out when they get a good look. My pupils also don't constrict like they are supposed to, so one is more oval and the other much smaller overall ... the number of times I have had to say, NO, I do NOT have a concussion is amazing.
#20
My friend grows hair out of his gums in his mouth. We looked it up and only a handful of cases worldwide have been reported.
#21
My grade 6 teacher had violet coloured eyes. At the time, it was estimated there were less than 200 on earth with that colour.
#22
I didn't know him, but one time I was helping a customer at a grocery store I worked at and he threw his head back and laughed, and I saw he had two rows of top teeth.
wtfbenlol:
I have an extra row of teeth behind my front, top teeth. There are 6 of them up there. Kinda like a shark but way more lame.
#23
Had a guy doing some work on a previous rental I lived in, his pupils were rectangular and uncentered.
#24
Webbed toes. All five kids in the family had them.
#25
I'm missing a rib on one side. Just born without it. I don't know how rare it is or isn't, but I've never met anyone else who has it. A quick Google tells me it's associated with other genetic conditions, but I don't have any.
I always knew because when I was a kid I noticed my ribcage was visibly asymmetric and counted them up. But nobody believed me until I was in my 20s and had to get X-Rays done, and the doctor was like... "huh."
#26
I had a friend who didn't grow any body hair, just the hair on her head and eyebrows.
*raspberry sound 13 hours ago
I wonder if she ever got goosebumps where there was no hair growth
#27
I saw pictures but didn’t see in person. A distant relative had a baby born with his internal organs on the outside. The doctors were able to fix him up and he is like 11 years old now.
Sunshine 5 hours ago
My neighbour's son was born like that (he is now 34). The doctors have to pack all the intestines in (what looks like) a clear plastic bag. The baby has to grow a bit before they can get everything back inside his wee tummy. Kind of amazing that babies can survive this because of incredible medical advancements.
#28
I went to school with someone who had no legs and small stumps for arms, a victim of meningitis (vaccinate your kids people!). He had a fantastic attitude about the whole thing, and he ran as fast as any other kid with his prosthetics.
Yelenda Lawrence-Tahir 41 minutes ago
Prosthetics are amazing ! They have changed so many lives !
#30
I met a guy, his buddies called him "redman". He was not a ginger but his skin was red. An anomalous red, not a shade of brown, Red, unlike any ethnic group. Some sort of affliction I am sure. Caucasian guy by ethnicity.
#31
You can’t see mine but I have three kidneys. I was born that way. Two are in the normal spots and my extra is lower midline. My grandma had three also so I guess it runs in the family. I should have donated it when I was younger. Doctors said it’s smaller but functional and would be good to donate to a child because it would likely grow with them.
#32
My grandpa's heart was in his body backwards, discovered when he had a heart attack and needed surgery. All his other organs were oriented correctly, just his heart was backwards.
Catherine Graves 12 hours ago
Backwards, as in front to back? That would be rare. If it is instead on the right side of his chest instead of the left, that is called dextrocardia. If all the organs are reversed to the opposite of the body, it is called situs inversus totalis. Very interesting.
#33
I knew someone who had one fully brown eye, and one eye that was 3/4 brown and 1/4 blue. Just a pizza-slice-shaped chunk of pure blue amidst the brown.
Upstaged75 11 hours ago
I had a horse like that. He was an Appaloosa. Unfortunately he also had uveitis and went blind in that same eye.
#36
A black man with the most unbelievably ice blue eyes I’ve ever seen. He had a very smooth but unrecognizable accent and sometimes I’m convinced I met some kind of deity that day.
#38
We had a girl in one of my Army units that had no collar bones, she could make her shoulders touch.
highwaycrossingfrog 14 hours ago
Cleidocranial dysplasia. Affects about one in a million people.
#39
My grandfather's brother had a scar on his torso, faded but gnarly. I asked what it was. It was the remnant of a tumor extraction. Not that weird you'd say, people get tumors all the time. Well, this tumor was Fetus In Fetu; the man had devoured his twin in-utero and carried its corpse along inside his upper abdomen until he was almost 50. Considering there's roughly 200 known cases of Fetus In Fetu documented in the world, I'd say seeing the aftermath of one is rather rare.
#40
My daughter has double rows of eyelashes.
I have molars with J-shaped roots that curve back upward upon themselves.
I also have Darwin’s tubercles, which causes excess cartilaginous bumps all along my ears and makes them pointy on top like a little elf!
BlitheSpirit 11 hours ago
I have the double row eyelashes, it’s not as great as one would think…
#41
Just last week, I found out that my 14 year old cousin doesn’t have fingerprints—including footprints.
#42
My wife has the cutest dimple I’ve ever seen and I’ve never seen it on anyone else. It’s right below her eye when she laughs. I know it doesn’t compare to other comments but thought it was worth mentioning. lol.
#43
My dad has a birthmark on his face shaped *exactly* like Africa.
*raspberry sound 13 hours ago
An old friend of mine once had a bruise that looked EXACTLY like that picture of Johnny Cash, flipping off the camera. It was INSANE.
#44
I worked with a guy who has some rare form of hyperdontia. Like his body will just randomly decide to grow extra teeth and he has to go get them pulled.
Apparently his dental X-rays look super [messed] up.
#46
My grandfather had like royal blue eyes, quite unusual and the only person I’ve ever seen with that color of eyes.
#47
You can't see my rare features, but i was born without an appendix, I have an extra vertebrae and my normal body temperature is 96 degrees, F. rather than 98.6. Oh, and my eyes fixed themselves. I don't need glasses anymore.
#48
I worked with a woman with the most electric yellowish green eyes. I’m jealous to this day. You never see green eyes like THAT!
#49
I have offsetting birth defects in my hand. I inherited polydactyl genes from my mom and missing fingy genes from my dad. I have 10 fingers, but they're not normal.
My right hand has 2 ring fingers and no pinky. Looks almost totally normal til you X ray it.
(Edit- The key difference between your pinky and other fingers is that the pinky shares a ~~knuckle~~ tendon with the ring finger. Thats why you can't fold your pinky flat without also bending your ring finger in a little. I however can make a fist with only my "pinky" no problem.).
#50
My Indian second cousin (with Indian parents) has dark blue eyes. 99.99% of Indians have black/brown eyes. Occasionally Indians have green or pale brown eyes, but never blue.
highwaycrossingfrog 14 hours ago (edited)
My Indian mother-in-law has pale green eyes. All of her 3 children have brown.
Note: this post originally had 83 images. It’s been shortened to the top 50 images based on user votes.
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What do you think ?
Littlemiss 12 hours ago
The more I read of so called abnormalities, the more I realise being different is okay. It's okay to okay with myself. I have a couple of the traits featured here.
Lady Eowyn 56 minutes ago
I think it's nice that people come in so many varieties of skin and hair color.
Littlemiss 12 hours ago
The more I read of so called abnormalities, the more I realise being different is okay. It's okay to okay with myself. I have a couple of the traits featured here.
Lady Eowyn 56 minutes ago
I think it's nice that people come in so many varieties of skin and hair color.
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