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“It’s A Sight I’ll Never Forget”: 50 Unique Physical Features That Fascinated People
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.
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#2
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.
#4
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.
#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.
#7
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!
#8
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.
#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
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.
#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
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.
#13
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.
#14
My grade 6 teacher had violet coloured eyes. At the time, it was estimated there were less than 200 on earth with that colour.
#15
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.
#16
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.
#17
I worked with someone who had orangey red hair and eyes that were the exact same color. He did not wear contacts.
#18
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.
#21
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.
#25
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.
#26
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.
#27
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.
#28
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.
#29
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.
#30
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.
#31
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.
#32
Had a guy doing some work on a previous rental I lived in, his pupils were rectangular and uncentered.
#33
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."
#34
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.
#35
Just last week, I found out that my 14 year old cousin doesn’t have fingerprints—including footprints.
#36
We had a girl in one of my Army units that had no collar bones, she could make her shoulders touch.
#37
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.
#38
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.
#41
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.
#42
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.
#44
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!
#46
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!
#47
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.
#48
My grandfather had like royal blue eyes, quite unusual and the only person I’ve ever seen with that color of eyes.
#49
My uncle had a skin graft. On his eyelid. The skin had come from his thigh in a technique called a walking skin graft. He had to shave his eyelid thereafter.
#51
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.).
#52
I met someone with eyes the color of most huskies. He told me he thinks the majority of people he meets don’t listen to a word he says because they’re so distracted by his eyes. He told me that as I was leaving because I talked to him for a couple of hours at a party and I never mentioned his eyes and he appreciated not having someone new talk about it.
#53
I have a third tear-duct near my throat that opens and closes when I swallow, and "cries" sometimes. I've never met anyone else with this condition, and can hardly find any information online about it. According to my parents, the 80 year-old nurse who helped deliver me had the same thing and that's the only reason my parents have any information about it.
#54
Had a classmate in middle school who had eyes so brown that they almost appeared red. Completely naturally. I've met so many people with a golden tint, or just a "deeper" brown, but never a shade of brown like hers.
#55
Ringed hair, I worked with a girl that when you looked at each strand of individual hair closely was ringed with light and dark color hard to describe it was very subtle but I never herd of it and it looked cool.
#56
Not crazy rare but someone mixed race with ginger hair and green eyes, they’re also just so beautiful anyway.
#57
I used to babysit two girls. Both their parents have brown hair and brown eyes. The older sister has dark features like her parents while her younger sister has bright orange hair, a brown eye with dark eyebrow and black lashes on one side, and a pale blue eye with blond eyelashes and eyebrow on the other side. She was a ginger with a half albino face basically. But because she was so white, you couldn’t really see the difference on her skin.
#59
I went to elementary school with a girl whose hair was absolutely ice white. She wasn't albino although she was quite fair. She and her older brother had the kind of stark white hair you would only associate with extreme old age. Very beautiful like an elf.
#61
I used to do manicures. Something is wrong here... one, two, three fingers, thumb... where's number 4???
One would think that would be something you would warn someone about ahead of time.
Turned out she was one of the children of thalidomide.
#62
I once met someone who had a very obvious Habsburg jaw in university. Considering the history of the Habsburg jaw... well, I never attempted to ask about their family tree.
#63
I met a guy that had no muscle in one of his lower legs, just bones covered in skin. He walked around, slowly.
#64
I worked with a woman with a skin condition where her skin just constantly grew and didn't shed on its own. She had scaly looking patches that were slightly greenish.
#65
I was in Nepal doing relief work.
Walking along a Nadi (river) there was a guy on the path in front of me. His foot was so twisted he was literally stepping on the 'top' of his foot, it curved that much. No shoe, no sandal.
Every step was clearly a labor, a process.
I think about him a lot, because I had to learn to walk again after a horrific motorcycle accident. Fortunately I'm almost fully recovered. Dude was born this way. No apparatus, no mobility aid. Just churning his way along.
#66
My mother was 35 when she discovered she had been born without one kidney. She had multiple operations before that, and ct and mri and pet scans (idk which does what but I know she’s had all of them…) and no one ever noticed she had one kidney.
#67
In highschool I had two male friends with chest deformities. One of them- his sternum stuck outwards. The other one- caved in. I liked to make them hug each other.
#68
I was born with a heart shaped tongue. Which to me, is perfectly normal and a total nothing burger. But when I bring it up and show it to people it’s definitely an oddity to look at. The way people gather around to look and comment lol. I was told growing up that I was expected to have a lisp, which would have been HORRIBLE because I’m gay. To the contrary I have a very enviable deep voice, very similar to Dan Rather.
#69
-Guy who ran a gas station I frequented had a case of vitiligo.
-Knew a whole family with red hair and green eyes. (Sadly, not the Weasley's)
-Went to school someone who had Blaschko's lines visible.
Not sure which one is the rarest.
#70
Saw an asian girl with naturally light golden blonde straight hair, she was probably 5 years old so not dyed. This would’ve been no later than 2003, and I’ve never seen this since. I assumed her father was likely white, as she was with her mum who was Asian.
#71
I have a duplicate set of veins in one of my legs and a birthmark running the length of it.
#72
I knew a girl with a 1.5 inch skin tag coming out of her temple, looked like a little floppy antennae. Never saw anyone else with one like hers until Waffle House in Jackson MS when our hostess had TWO of them one on each side.
#73
Was walking in a city a while back, crossed paths with a guy wearing slides. He had straight up monkey feet.
Looked it up and it’s a thing that happens to some of us. Toe thumbs are a related minor variation.
#74
I knew a little boy that was born with some health complications, but one of the benign attributes was that he didn't have ligaments in this thumbs. They could bend any direction with no pain. He couldn't use them. I knew him as an infant like 15 years ago, so I'm now sure how he's doing now.
#75
The kid who was in my class at nursery who has amber coloured eyes. Terrified me 🤣 i used to hide from him. I still feel bad about it.
#79
Lady at a convenience store I used to stop most mornings had six fingers on her right hand. It took me a while to see it, but when I did, I couldn’t unsee it.
#80
A good family friend had lost his ring finger on one hand as a young man. So one hand only had three fingers but his hand had grown to sort of adapt. Meaning it didn’t look like he was missing a finger. It took me years to notice he had a Simpson hand!
#81
I knew a guy whose head and neck came out from nearly the front of his chest. It was off-putting to say the least.
This was the result of a traffic accident. He was lucky to survive.
#83
Two of my kids have red hair and blue eyes, which apparently are present together in less than .2% of the population, more rare than heterochromia (I thought it was more common than that).
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What do you think ?
Littlemiss 2 months 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.
The Other Guest 1 month ago (edited)
I have a friend with a double uvula. One year we used it as a fundraiser for our guild at the Renaissance Faire, charging folks twenty-five cents to see it. There were a lot of disappointed young men that day who learned the difference between "uvula" and "vulva."
Lady Eowyn 1 month ago
I think it's nice that people come in so many varieties of skin and hair color.
Littlemiss 2 months 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.
The Other Guest 1 month ago (edited)
I have a friend with a double uvula. One year we used it as a fundraiser for our guild at the Renaissance Faire, charging folks twenty-five cents to see it. There were a lot of disappointed young men that day who learned the difference between "uvula" and "vulva."
Lady Eowyn 1 month ago
I think it's nice that people come in so many varieties of skin and hair color.
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