When anyone thinks of twins, they automatically think of two people who look exactly the same. And while non-identical twins are also common, they sometimes have trouble convincing others they are indeed twins. Well, now imagine having a twin who is not even the same skin tone as you, with a different hair type and different eye color. It would be even harder to believe they are twins, let alone siblings! Lucy and Maria Aylmer are exactly that, and you would never know they are related just by looking at them!
Maria and Lucy were born in 1997. Their mother is half-Jamaican, while their father is white. They are two of five siblings and what makes them so special is that they are twins and bi-racial twins at that! You would think that the pair would be a blend of both their parents, but each girl resembles a different parent. Lucy is fair-skinned with blue eyes and red hair, while Maria has dark, curly hair and caramel-colored skin.
Nobody believes the pair are twins
Of course, it is not hard to see why everyone thinks the girls are just friends. They have even shown their birth certificates to prove that they are actual twin sisters, born on the exact same day, from the exact same parents. According to Barcroft Media, Lucy says,
“No one ever believes we are twins because I am white and Maria is black. Even when we dress alike, we still don’t even look like sisters, let alone twins.” She also says that her siblings are all a blend of both parents: “All our older brothers and sisters have a skin color which is in between Maria and I. We are at opposite ends of the spectrum and they are all somewhere in between.”
Lucy says that their own mother, Donna Douglas, has even said that she was confused when the girls were born.
“It was such a shock for her because obviously things like skin color don’t show up on scans before birth. So she had no idea that we were so different. When the midwife handed us both to her, she was just speechless.”
The pair are not only very different in appearance, but their personalities are completely different too. Lucy describes herself as a more shy type, while Maria is far more extroverted and outgoing.
Read: Sisters Who Looked Almost Identical at Birth Grow Up to Have Different Skin Colors
The sisters are proud to be different
While their differences in appearance and personality would cause many to think the girls would live very separate lives, Lucy says that their differences have helped bring them even closer together. Lucy explains, via ITV News. “Now we are proud of the fact that we are each other’s twin sister. Maria loves telling people at college that she has a white twin – and I’m very proud of having a black twin.”
Lucy and Maria are not the only biracial twins out there
While it is a rare occurrence, there are other twins just like them. Cole and Klay are biracial twin boys who were born in 2020. Twins Kalani and Jarani are also fraternal twins with different color skin.
While it is different, being twins of different colors is beautiful and so unique. Dr. Bryce Mendelsohn, a medical geneticist at the University of California, San Francisco, spoke to TODAY Parents.
“The physical traits you can see in a person are just a very small sliver of the genetic diversity across human populations. A lot of times we only focus on the things our eyes can see, but what we see is a tiny tip of the iceberg of the actual genetic diversity in everyone.”
“Sometimes it’s going to be heads all eight times. And it’s kind of like that when you have a bunch of genes. They’re all randomly shuffling, and you can get all kinds of outcomes.”
Keep Reading: Meet the biracial twins who make strangers do a double take
