Extremely rare identical triplets have been born to a family in Pennsylvania this week, according to various reports.

Identical triplets are incredibly uncommon, and the chances of such an occurrence of happening are 1 in 500,000.

The identical triplets were three brothers named Daniel Jeffrey, Ryder James and Garrett Campbell. They were born earlier this week on Tuesday in a Pennsylvania hospital just two minutes apart. They were born at 8.42, 8.43 and 8.44 in quick succession.

Mother Jennifer Price is said to be ecstatic. She admitted that she was shocked when she was informed she was expecting identical triplets.

Jennifer and her husband Daniel have already had one older girl previously. The little girl is also said to be delighted to have so many new brothers and she reportedly has already had cuddles with each of them.

Early indications are that the three boys have very few distinguishing features, and their father has said they even have cowlicks in their hair in the same locations.

Follow us

Identical triplets are very rare and result when the original fertilized egg splits and then one of the resultant cells splits again (for triplets) or, even more rarely, a further split occurs (for quadruplets).

Alternatively the original fertilized egg can split twice (to produce four embryos) and all four may survive, to produce identical quadruplets, or one of the embryos may not survive and result in triplets.