Black and White Twin Sisters

A double take in beautiful black & white.

A mixed-race British mom gave birth to twins recently - one of each. 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." 

Commentary:
In early March 2006 an email complete with photographs of adorable twin girls - one black skinned and one white - began circulating. The message states that the twins are the children of a mixed race British couple and claims the chances of such a birth are "about a million to one".

The information in the email is true and the photographs are genuine. The photographs depict fair-skinned Remee and dark-skinned Kian who were born in April 2005. The fraternal twins were born to parents Kylie Hodgson and Remi Horder from Nottingham, England. Both Kylie and Remi are of mixed race, with black fathers and white mothers.

Although exceedingly rare, such births are not unprecedented. An article about the twins in the Daily Mail explains that:

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.

An updated picture of the beautiful Twin girls.