Twins with Different Skin Color Genes
The two girls you see in the picture here are twins. Born to a mother of Jamaican-English descent and a father of German descent, Alicia and Jasmin Singerl were born in May 2006. They look completely different.
Their mother, Natasha Knight:
When they were born you could see there was a colour difference straight away. We couldn’t believe it.
Alicia’s eyes were brown and her hair was dark. Jasmin’s eyes were blue and her hair was white – you could hardly see her hair or her eyebrows.
The Sunday Telegraph is calling this a “million-to-one medical miracle.”
Ahem. Statistically, this is perhaps a very unusual occurrence. But a medical miracle? Unlikely.
These girls are just like any other sibling pair because they are non-identical, born of two different fertilized eggs. That their mother has mixed parentage makes it even more likely for them to inherit a mixture of different genes that determine skin color. As a matter of fact, their five-year-old sister Taylah has blue eyes, blonde hair, and light olive complexion. Sort of in the middle of the the spectrum for the Knight-Singerl family.
In the process of meiosis when egg cells are formed in the mother, a random selection of genes will be allocated to each egg. The set of chromosomes in each egg cell is unique. We’re focusing on the twins’ mother here because the father is assumed to have a homogenous set of genes for white skin color.
Genetics experts say that in most cases a mixed-race woman’s eggs will be a mixture of genes for both black and white skin.
However, much more rarely, the eggs may contain genes for predominantly one skin colour. In this case, Ms Knight has released two such eggs – one with predominantly dark pigmentation genes and one with predominantly fair genes.
Wild and unlikely, yes. But a miracle? Not quite.
NB: Razib at ScienceBlogs’ Gene Expression has more about another set of contrasting twin girls (but in their case, both the parents were mixed race).
Update: Another pair of black and white twins have been identified – the Richardson twin boys of Britain.
Technorati Tags: michael singerl, natasha knight, alicia, jasmin, twins, skin color, genetics, genes, dna, health, weird
I think the babies above are beautiful little girls. I am light skinned african american and my husband is a dark skinned african. Our baby is in between both of our colors. However I wonder what are our chances of having twins such as these girls. My fathers mother was so light in color she looked like a mexican and her brother surely is mistaking for a white man(I thought he was) and so on through out the family even our texture of hair is different then normal african american hair. We are obviously mixed with some of everything. Since I have a great chance from my maternal side to have twins I would like to know what are the chances of having this surprise miracle for me?
i think it is amazing and in my opinion evolution. the twins are soo beautiful and it is not really a miracle because i’m from the caribbean and light-skinned babies are being born to black mothers most of the time. both of my parents are black but me and my sister are light-skinned because our great grand-dad was indian.chances of us havin half indian babies are high. things like that shoudnt matter anyway, it’s a way of god showing us that skin colour doesnt matter and people should accept us for who we are, put aside all this racism. if one calls it a miracle then they should come to the caribbean and witness such miracles everyday.
yay!make the whole world brown!! i love mixed people..(my fiance is white) our kids are gonna be the cutest!!
Race is a man-made differentiation in order to separate groups of people for man-made reasons. If this conversation was about eye colors in families, we wouldn’t be talking about it being because of “mixed race.” My mom is one of five. Two siblings have blue eyes, two have brown and one has hazel. So what?
Also, someone said something about this being weird to white people because we are all born pink-skinned at birth. I come from a “white” family but we actually have all “races” in our genetic history and we all have variances in our skin colors. My mom has a pink complection, but I have an olive one. My brother is rather naturally tan. Again, so what? This just goes to show that “race” is a stupid way to classify people.
Most families have differently complected members–just not as often with such vast contrast. However, it is more interesting when the contrast are large. I knew a Mexican who looked middle-eastern even though everyone else in his family looked amerindian. I also have a cousin who has black, thick hair like a native american’s, even though her siblings have fine, blonde hair. It just happens and it’s cool.
I really wish that we could look at it as genetic diversity instead of saying “they have a white twin and a black twin,” since both children have the same exact “racial” ancestry. That also goes to show that race is merely about appearences and nothing to do with scientific reality.
Nearly everyone African American has some percent of white in their bloodline and half of the white American has African bloodline due to African American passing back in the day and marrying a white person. So the production of these types of births are not rare but a form of reality for the world to see. This is the work of the GOD. The scientist are so stupid using the mathematical scale to determine why such a thing happens to mankind.
I am so happy to see that finally people are talking out about mixed race offspring. I myself am mixed race (black,white,hispanic and east indian) but I look very Southern Indian. My sister looks mulatto. I am also several shades darker than both my parents and because of that was the butt of many cruel jokes including my paternity. It is only now as a medical student I have finally come to grips with the genetics behind my appearance and stories like these uplift me even more.
there are twins like this at my school ones black ones white but they both look identical so u can tel there twins and the white one has drown hair! i actualy think its cute
I am 42 year twin who is the white or lighter of the black and white twin.
I am a dark brown eyed and skinned mother of 3 ..My family is all white with brothers and sisters having blond hair and blue eyes and while all my children are white (my son has blue eyes) its not quite the mystery as other cases , my mothers mother (my grandmother) was 100% native and I guess the gene for dark complexion decided to skip a generation..yes akward for me but im guessing one of my grandbabies may be dark complected!
Personally, I find this an interesting aspect of the gene pool but certainly no different than any other set of siblings. I had three daughters. My oldest is 5′7″, blonde hair, a specific build, and hazel eyes. Then I have a set of twins. One of the twins literally looks almost identical to her older sister, so much so I often find myself, as one enters the room, calling her the name of the younger/older sibling. Everyone gets them mixed up, even at school. The eldest said she’s had a strange kid come up and ask if she can borrow lunch money, and my daughter, suprised, explained that she didn’t even know this kid. Then the kid said, “Aren’t you Kelsey”… Then my daughter laughed and explained she was her sister, older by three years. These two girls got their Mom’s hair, build, etc. But Daddy’s features too, specifically his eye shape and color. He’s more olive skin toned, neither of these two have that. I have a pinkish undertone and tan easy but I’m not olive toned.
The other twin is short (5′2″) , built entirely differently (like her Daddy’s mother and sister) , has baby blue eyes (her Paternal Granny and two paternal uncles have them), and wavy dark brown hair (her Mom has very wavy hair but it’s blonde no one in Dad’s family has wave in their hair). She looks a lot more like her father and his family. He has the dark hair, which she got from her Daddy, but the other two have their Daddy’s hazel eyes, but she did get her Daddy’s family set of baby blues (so all three girls got something of his). The short twin (Dad’s family a may have her Dad’s hair color, but she has my personality and my face shape, my nose, and my eye shape, smile, and teeth.
Even the three girls have different skin tones — one has porcelain skin, one olive skin tone, and the other is more of a pinkish undertone. Again, a mix of his and mine mixed heritage. We’re both caucasion, but we have a mix of Irish, German, English, and two types of American Indian in us, and probably some things that I’m not aware of!!!
Fraternal twins get the same gene pool randomness as all brothers and sisters. So it’s no surprise to me that if there’s mixed heritage in either the mother or father’s gene pool that the children’s coloring can run from very light to very dark.
I know a young man who’s mother is a caucasion, blonde, with blue eyes. His father is a black man (although I’ve met the father’s mother and she MUST have some white in her family tree because she’s a very light skin black lady. This young man has a brother with STRAIGNT black hair (like an Hispanic, but none in the family, guess the Mom had the straight hair) and his coloring is a light mocha…. very nice color. The younger sibling that I know is literally fairer skinned than me, has blondish brown hair, blode arm and leg hair, but has some curl to his hair, although not as much as his father, the black male.
I have 6 kids with my husband, I’m New Zealand English/ Samoan descent and my husband is New Zealand English Maori descent, we both are brown skin and have brown colour eyes, our 6 children were all born different colours oldest child is fair skin blonde hair dark blue eyes, next child born is very dark skin and black hair with dark brown eyes as well as the third child, our 4th child is fair with red (carrot colour) hair green-gray eye colour, 5th child fair skin with copper coloured hair & light brown eyes and our last child was born fair skin and blonde hair with dark bluey eyes… I have been the talk of the town when they were all young lol my boys could tell you stories about their friends not believing them that they were all brothers or sisters even their teachers lol…. love my kids
ok this is strange but then again its so cool if you believe that that’s possible!!!!
The misagination that occurs around the world anymore is astonishing. People care more for the breed of there dog than their own offspring.The genealogical mutations that occur tend to always develop in a negative way, not positive. Its not always first generation its usually second and third. Age, I-Q, and the reproductive organs are all compromised. We are in the animal kingdom and nature does apply. Its fashionable to race mix. Unfortunately people don’t want to understand the truth. Study history, Pre 1945. America is creating the next regional race of “Indians”.
I am an african with brown skin and so is my husband but our first born was born dark skinned and our second born was much lighter than me and my husbands complexion. My sister is also very light while both our parents are dark skinned.