10 Fun Facts about Fingerprints

Fun Fact 1: Ridges

Fingerprints are defined as the impressions made by the ridges on the ends of our fingers. Those ridges provide humans with the friction and traction to grasp objects without having them slip between their fingers. It is also believed by many scientists that those ridges enhance our sense of touch.

Fun Fact 2: Patterns and Classification

Scientists have known about fingerprints since the 19th century. As early as 1892, English scientist Sir Francis Galton wrote a book about using fingerprints to solve crimes. It was not until 1896, however, that Sir Edward Richard Henry would develop a way to classify fingerprints based upon their general ridge patterns: loops, whorls and arches.

Fun Fact 3: Uniqueness

Fingerprints are unique to each individual. That means that no one else in the world has the exact same set of fingerprints. No two fingerprints have ever been found identical in many billions of human and automated computer comparisons.

Fun Fact 4: Formation

The human fetus will begin to acquire fingerprints three months into gestation. They form from pressure on a baby's tiny, developing fingers in the womb. It is the slight difference in the womb environment that causes identical twins to be born with similar, but not identical, fingerprints. Fingerprints will never change from the time of birth until death. Their uniqueness and lasting quality make fingerprints one of the best ways to identify a person.

Fun Fact 5: Residue

Natural oils in the skin that are produced by the skin’s sebaceous glands combined with the salts produced from our sweat glands form a residue which is left on objects forming a latent fingerprint.

Fun Fact 6: Dactyloscopy

Although it has been modified slightly over time, the system of fingerprint identification, called Dactyloscopy, is still used by law enforcement agencies all over the world. The name is of Greek origin, stemming from the Greek work 'daktylos' meaning “finger” and 'skopein' meaning “to examine.”

Fun Fact 7: Fingerprints First Used As Identification

Fingerprints weren't used as a method for identifying criminals until the 19th century. In 1858, an Englishman named Sir William Herschel was working as the Chief Magistrate in Jungipoor, India. In order to reduce fraud, he had the residents record their fingerprints when signing business documents.

Fun Fact 8: First Fingerprint Used In A Criminal Case

In 1892, Juan Vucetich, a police officer in Buenos Aires, Argentina, was called in to assist with the investigation of two boys murdered in a small village near Buenos Aires. Suspicion had fallen initially on a man named Velasquez, a love interest of the boys' mother, Francisca Rojas. But when Vucetich compared fingerprints found at the murder scene to those of both Velasquez and Rojas, they matched Rojas' exactly. She confessed to the crime. This was the first time fingerprints had been used in a criminal investigation.

Fun Fact 9: J. Edgar Hoover

John Edgar Hoover was the director of the FBI for almost 48 years, and from 1924 until the time of his death in 1972, he was responsible for establishing one of the best forensic laboratories in the world, as well as a national fingerprint registry. The FBI’s fingerprint database is the largest in the world.

Fun Fact 10: Animal Kingdom

Humans are not the only ones with fingerprints! Some primates, including gorillas and chimpanzees, and koala bears have their own unique prints.

Gorillas have hands that are quite similar to human hands. They have five fingers (including an opposable thumb), and five toes (including an opposable big toe). Gorillas can grasp things with both their hands and their feet. They are capable of grasping these objects because they have ridges on their feet and hands that help them grip things. These ridges are formed in unique patterns and cause gorillas to have fingerprints of their own.

The koala has fingerprints that are so similar to the human fingerprint that it is almost impossible to tell them apart because of the pattern, shape and size of the ridges. Under the microscope, the ridges look exactly the same. The width of the ridge, the shape, general size and pattern is the same. The main difference is that the entire human palm and fingers are covered with ridges while the koala only has ridges on its fingertips and some parts of the palm.