text: The set of monoisotopic elements overlap but are not the same as the set of 21 mononuclidic elements, which are characterized as having essentially only one isotope (nuclide) found in nature. The reason for this is the occurrence of certain long-lived radioactive primordial nuclides in nature, which may form admixtures with the monoisotopics, and thus prevent them from being naturally mononuclidic. This happens in the cases of 7 of the monoisotopic elements. These isotopes are monoisotopic, but due to the presence of the long-lived radioactive primordial nuclide, are not mononuclidic. These elements are vanadium, rubidium, indium, lanthanum, europium, lutetium and rhenium. For indium and rhenium, the long-lived radionuclide is actually the most abundant isotope in nature, and the stable isotope is less abundant. 
  In 2 additional cases (bismuth and protactinium), mononuclidic elements occur primordially which are not monoisotopic because the naturally occurring nuclide is radioactive, and thus the element has no stable isotopes at all. For an element to be monoisotopic, it must have one stable nuclide.