IN what scientists have branded a million-to-one chance, a couple has given birth to twin baby boys - one white, the other black.
Layton, who weighed 6lb 4oz, was growing blonde hair and was fair skinned. His brother, Kaydon, who arrived 20 minutes later weighing 6lb 9oz, was black. "When they were first born, no one really noticed anything unusual as they were both practically the same colour," said their 27-year-old mother Miss Kerry Richardson.
"But over the last few months, Layton has got lighter and blonder, like his dad, and Kaydon has gone darker like me."
The one in a million conception happened after two eggs were fertilised at the same time in the womb.
While Miss Richardson is of English-Nigerian heritage, the twins' father is white.
According to the Multiple Births Foundation, baby Kaydon must have inherited the black genes from his mother, whilst Layton inherited the white ones from his father.
"Everywhere we go, you can see people looking and you can tell they are dying to comment," said Kerry, an administrator. "I have to explain they really are twins and do have the same parents.
"Sometimes, I think that it is going to be really weird for them growing up. But I just look at them as being even more special."
The brothers were born at the James Cook University Hospital, Middlesbrough, England, on July 23, four weeks prematurely.
"I went into hospital at 8.30 a.m. on July 22 and Kaydon and Layton were born the next morning," said Miss Richardson. "Layton was born at 1.40 a.m. and Kaydon was born twenty minutes later at 2 a.m. on July 23.
"Everyone who sees them can't believe that they are twins. I have had people say to me 'don't they look alike, they are just like twins' and I have to tell them that they are twins."
"Even then some people take some persuading that I am serious. It was just gradual that we started noticing the difference in their skin colour. But to me it doesn't matter what they look like. They are my little angels and I would love them whatever colour of skin they had." Skin colour of a baby 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 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. International clinical geneticist, Dr Stephen Withers, said the likelihood of a mixed race woman having eggs that were predominantly for one skin colour was rare enough, let alone releasing two of them simultaneously and producing twins.
"It's probably a million to one chance," he said. Richard Fisher, locum consultant in clinical genetics at James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough, added: "Non-identical twins are better described as brothers who happened to have been conceived at the same time. "They were formed from two separate eggs and therefore just share 50 per cent of their genes. It is therefore not unusual for there to be a difference in appearance.
"However, it is unusual for there to be a significant difference in skin colour and I have never come across a case like this myself."
It comes just days after another mother spoke of her one in a million birth. Twin sisters Alicia and Jasmin Singerl, who were conceived naturally, were born in May and live with their parents in Burpengary, north of Brisbane. Their mother, Natasha Knight, 35, is of mixed-race Jamaican-English heritage, while their father Michael Singerl, 34, is a white German. But, like Kaydon and Layton, one of the five-month old girls is black while the other is white.
Miss Knight said they had speculated during her pregnancy about what would happen if each twin entirely took after one parent. "It's just amazing, they are so different," she said. "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."
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