Double take!
One black, one white... the million-to-1 twins
They may be dressed alike, right down to their pink and white bootees, but Kendall and Baylee are no ordinary twins.
For a one-in-a-million quirk of nature means that one sister has black skin and the other is white.
The effect is so striking that even their father says it is hard to believe the three-month-olds are related.
Their mother Rebecca horton said: ‘When they were born, we kept staring at both of them – we couldn’t believe it. It was a lovely feeling and a big shock. One thing I know for sure is that family and friends won’t ever struggle to tell them apart.’
The girls’ contrasting looks can be
‘We couldn’t believe it’
traced back to their parents. Their father, Curtis Martin, 24, is half- Jamaican, while Miss horton, 28, is white.
As non-identical twins, from two separately fertilised eggs, they have inherited different sets of genes. Normally, you would expect both to inherit a mix of black and white genes and be born with a similar skin tone.
But, in odds of a million to one, Baylee has inherited the genes for white skin while Kendall’s genetic inheritance includes some for black skin, from her mixed-race father.
The sisters are already attracting attention wherever they go.
Miss horton, a delivery driver for Asda from Kingswinford in the West Midlands, said: ‘When people look in the pram and see that one is darker than the other, they will sometimes be a bit thrown and ask if they are twins. They are shocked when we say yes.’ Mr Martin, a builder, told The Sun: ‘If I saw them out, I don’t think I’d believe they were related.’
Allan Pacey, a fertility expert at Sheffield University, said that just as twins can have different hair or eyes, they can also have skin of different colours. And just as a baby’s hair colour often changes with age, the twins’ skin may yet change. he said: ‘It is just nature’s way of making us diverse.’