why clones don’t look exactly the same as the original
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Our DNA doesn’t contain the exact locations of anything in our bodies, it’s more like an instruction manual for building a human. There’s a lot of environmental factors that can significantly affect the process. For instance if you wrote instructions on how to build a house people in different parts of the world might use different types of wood which could affect the final outcome. Similarly two clones could have very different diets which affects how their bodies developed.
When you build something, say a desk, there are parts that need to be precise and parts that do not. The legs must all be the same length, but it can be larger or smaller or taller or shorter without causing issue.
So, at least before factories made it really easy to repeat the same process over and over, deskmakers would be very consistent about somethings and less consistent about others.
Your body follows a set of instructions as it builds itself. This set of instructions includes telling it what must be precise and what it can be sloppy with. This way it doesn’t waste valuable resources making your scalp as precisely as it does your eyes.
First off, clones of *what?*
This matters. The patterns on the coats/shells/whatever in some species is determined in utero. So some clones could have slight variations in stripe placement or spots.
So, there are some things that are influenced in utero that could cause a difference in appearance. Even identical twins (Nature’s clones!) have different fingerprints.
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