"mini-me" elements from separate species show an overall lack of sequence identity but have a number of shared features. Perfect inverted repeats are conserved at both termini of the "mini-me" elements. At the 5' end, the inverted repeat is partially duplicated, forming a complementary palindrome. The 3' inverted repeat is located at a slightly preterminal position. A core 33bp motif that begins approximately 110bp from the 5' end of the element is also conserved, having approximately 80% sequence identity across all copies of the "mini-me" element analysed. A (TA)_n-producing proto-microsatellite is present upstream of the 33bp core region and a (GTCY)_n-producing proto-microsatellite is present downstream of the 33bp core region. The region between the (GTCY)_n proto-microsatellite and the 3' subterminal inverted repeat is not conserved between species and can be extremely variable between copies of "mini-me" elements within a species.