Proud parents Tracey-Ann and Andrew Balasco will never have problems telling their twins apart – because one is black and the other is white.
While Orlando inherited his mop of black curls and big brown eyes from his Jamaican mother, his sister Natalia has blue eyes and wispy blonde hair.
Andrew, 28, said they created quite a stir at the hospital when they were born three months ago.
‘When Orlando came out, he was very dark and had loads of dark hair. Then Natalia appeared and she was so fair you could hardly see her eyelashes,’ he told the Daily Mirror.
Although there have been a few reported examples in recent years, the chances of twins having such diverse skin tones are a million to one.
A black Ghanian mother and white German father have just had their own dark and light-skinned twins in Lichtenberg.
Non-identical twins are siblings who happen to be born at the same time after 𝑡𝑤𝑜 𝑒𝑔𝑔𝑠 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑓𝑒𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑧𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑦 𝑡𝑤𝑜 𝑑𝑖𝑓𝑓𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑚. As a result, kids may inherit skin color genes from both their father and mother.
According to their mother Tracey-Ann, the gap between Orlando and Natalia has grown since their birth.
“Thank heavens for Orlando’s skin tone; otherwise, I would have gone to all the trouble of getting them just to have them look nothing like me!”
Tracey-Ann is convinced that the twins’ wildly different colouring is due to past generations of mixed race in her family.
‘Orlando is even darker and Natalia looks nothing like me,’ she said.
‘But it will be easier for them to be individuals.’
Natalia will have inherited her father’s genes for skin colour and Orlando will have his mother’s. It’s the same sort of genetic variation that leads to brothers and sisters having different looks.
‘They’re not just one of each, black and white,’ he said alluding to their heritage.
‘They’re half Jamaican, one quarter-English and one quarter-Italian.’
