Mixed Race Mystery

I was watching an incredible interview on television this morning, with a mixed race couple who recently had twins, a boy and a girl, born one minute apart from one another. So far, that's nothing out of the ordinary, I know. What caught my attention was the fact that the little boy was black and the little girl was white; and not just that, she had blonde hair and blue eyes! It's a known fact that most "mixed race" babies are born looking almost white and they develop their darker skin tone in the weeks following birth, but in the case I was watching, the little girl never did. They are now a few month's old and don't even look like brother and sister, let alone twins!

I was absolutely fascinated by the story, not only because I am in a mixed race marriage, but also because my husband recently told me that twins run in his family!! I would never have believed that it was possible for the above situation to occur but apparently it's not as unexpected to the medics as it would be to plebs like me! It would be impossible for such a situation to arise if the twins were monozygotic as they would have come from one egg splitting (creating identical twins); with dizygotic twins however, the possibility exists that they will be far from identical!! The fact is, babies who have developed from two separate eggs are effectively just brother and sister and the only thing connecting them as twins is their time of birth and the fact they grew in the same environment at the same time!

I know that is an incredibly simplistic way of explaining it but what can I say, I'm a simple kind of girl! I am just amazed that it's possible for a couple where one partner is black and one is white to end up with one baby who is black and one baby who is white. You learn something new every day!!