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Fraternal Twin Girls: One White, One Black

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Fraternal Twin Girls: One White, One Black

A mixed-race British mom gave birth to twins recently — one of each. No, not a boy and a girl. Two girls — one black, the other white. The odds of such a birth are about a million to one, experts said.

"It was a shock when I realized that my twins were two different colors," Kylie Hodgson, 19, told London's Daily Mail. "But it doesn't matter to us — they are just our two gorgeous little girls."

Hodgson and her partner, Remi Horder, 17, were both born to mixed-race parents. Little Kian and Remee share a love of apples and the Teletubbies, their proud mom says. Fertility experts speculate that a sperm containing all-white genes fused with an egg with all-white genes, and a sperm with all-black genes fused with an all-black gene egg to produce the fraternal twins.

The photograph and story excerpted above appeared in a variety of UK newspapers in February 2006. As described, in April 2005 Kylie Hodgson gave birth by caesarean section to fraternal twin girls, one black and one white. Kylie and her partner, Remi Horder, are of mixed race themselves, both having been born to white mothers and black fathers. Their twin girls — Kian and Remee — were both born with blue eyes, with Remee having blonde hair and Kian having black hair and somewhat darker skin than her sister. Since then, Remee's skin tone has become lighter, while Kian's has become darker and her eyes have turned brown.

Geneticists opined that the odds of such a coupling's producing mixed-race fraternal twins were about a million to one:
Skin colour is believed to be determined by up to seven different genes working together.

If a woman is of mixed race, her eggs will usually contain a mixture of genes coding for both black and white skin.

Similarly, a man of mixed race will have a variety of different genes in his sperm. When these eggs and sperm come together, they will create a baby of mixed race.

But, very occasionally, the egg or sperm might contain genes coding for one skin colour. If both the egg and sperm contain all white genes, the baby will be white. And if both contain just the versions necessary for black skin, the baby will be black.

For a mixed-race couple, the odds of either of these scenarios is around 100 to one. But both scenarios can occur at the same time if the woman conceives non-identical twins, another 100 to one chance.

This involves two eggs being fertilised by two sperm at the same time, which also has odds of around 100 to one.

If a sperm containing all-white genes fuses with a similar egg and a sperm coding for purely black skin fuses with a similar egg, two babies of dramatically different colours will be born.

The odds of this happening are 100 x 100 x 100 — a million to one.

Unbelievable! Literally a million to one shot.

Such adorable little girls too.

is there any reason this story is headlined with a graphic of Mister Yuck?

those little girls are adorable!!!

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Originally Posted by martinguerre

is there any reason this story is headlined with a graphic of Mister Yuck?

It was the Snopes graphic for swiping bandwith :)

Quote:

Originally Posted by martinguerre

is there any reason this story is headlined with a graphic of Mister Yuck?

--edit--

mal beat me to it...

Probably better Mr. Yuck than a picture, since photos of minors aren't allowed.

This happened a few years back in england (not twins but they had a white baby) and they thought it was just normal genetic odds, but when they had a second one it was discovered one of the parents had a 'white' mutation so to speak. I don't recall if it was a true mutation or a cross over mutation or what not.

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Originally Posted by maleficent

It was the Snopes graphic for swiping bandwith :)

Oooops! Sorry. I didn't know snopes did that. :o :o

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Originally Posted by onesnowyowl

since photos of minors aren't allowed.

Oooops again. I keep forgetting about that rule. :o

Speaking of the wonders of genetics, the litter my orange tabby cat came from, had 3 identical twins (white with a few black patches) and his fraternal twin, a black tabby.

Those little girls are cute, but you'd never know that they were twins.

Interesting stuff though!

Actually, I found that when you look closely, they really do share quite a resemblance. Very cute and truly amazing.

This reminds me of my sophmore year of high school. That year I took Biology I, and in that class to cement our knowledge of genetics and whatnot we determined our own (simplified) genetic traits and then were assigned a magazine cutout of a person that had his\her traits written down on the folder. Were were then supposed to compute what a baby made with that person would be like.

To that point I really hadn't thought about what my kid would have looked like due to my mongrel-ness. I dutifully did the assignment, and ended up with a white kid. That really drove home the fact that it's possible for my kids to be significantly different looking than I am.

I know I don't look anything like my parents if you just look at one of them. If you look at both of them, I look exactly as I should. :)

Thats awesome and the girls are to cute:)

I wonder how annoying it is going to get explaing to everyone that they are twins growing up?

Fun! Thanks for thinking of posting this one, lindalove.

They should start playing the lotto if they have that kind of luck (if you call it that). The mom is a hottie...

Should've brought a lottery ticket after they were born

for those of you who do not know me, im a twin also. as surprised as everyone is in here, this story came as no surprise to me since my brother and i share a similar case as these two girls.

you see...i come from a middle eastern family..lebanese to be exact. both my parents share an olive complexion...not white not black, and they look 'lebanese' i guess.

anyways, my younger brother and sister are fairly dark skinned, but my twin is 'dark skinned' and im the 'white sheep' in the family. although our contrasts are not as much as these babies, its quite obvious we are two different shades.

i have a baby photo if anyone is interested to see, but since we cant post pics of kids here ( i dont think u can post your own baby pics here either) then send me a private message and ill email to you or something.

just realised that since i dont have the privelage of posting pics for some reason yet, i cant even post post pic of me and him a few years back....

Those babies are cuties! And they do look remarkably similar in facial features, if you disregard hair and eyes.

I'm a twin, and my sister and I looked remarkably alike, which was probably because we were identical.

Gilda

Ummm, okay, I'll be the one to say it. There are quite a few different types of twins. Maybe our geneticist, Ustwo, can help me out.

There is such a thing as fraternal twins with different fathers. Superfecundation is the term for it. Apparently, about 1 in 400 dizygotic sets of twins born to white women in the US is bipaternal.

If anyone is interested:

Link

Link Again

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Originally Posted by Marvelous Marv

I was wondering if anyone else had thought about this... Maybe she was sleeping around? Just happened to get both daddies at once? I wonder if anyone has done a DNA test on both girls, and parents?