Twins are cool, but there's a whole lot of other interesting things that you probably didn't know about them. So if you'd like to expand on your twinsies trivia, check out this list of amazing facts below:
Twins can have different biological fathers
This one-in-a-million occurrence happened back in 2009, when a woman named Mia Washington gave birth to twins...
with two different fathers. This occurs when two eggs are released instead of one which can then be fertilized by sperm from different partners.
An easy way to tell identical twins apart is by looking at their belly buttons
Belly
buttons are basically just scars from the detachment of the umbilical cord. Since they aren’t caused by genetics, that means
no two belly buttons are exactly alike.
Identical twins do not have identical finger prints
During weeks
6 to 13 of pregnancy when the twins start to
move, how they touch the amniotic sac will eventually influence the unique ridges and lines on their fingers.
Trained sniffer dogs can tell the difference between identical twins
Since odor is affected by outside factors such as food and infections, it means trained German shepherds can
easily sniff out the difference between identical twins.
Separated twins can sometimes live eerily similar lives
Jim
Lewis and Jim Springer were only four weeks old when they were
separated and sent to different adoptive families. But their lives apart
shared some
truly remarkable similarities:
both had dogs named Toy as kids, smoked Salem cigarettes, drove Chevys,
and drank Miller Lite. They had also been married twice; first to women
named Linda and second to women named Betty.
Women who give birth to twins may live longer
This has to do with the belief that twins are an
evolutionary adaptation, where the healthiest of mothers take the chance to pass on double the genes at once.
Tall women are more likely to have twins
One
study found
that taller women have more insulin-like growth factor (IGF), which is
basically a protein that increases a woman’s chance of ovulating. And
the more IGF a woman has, the greater the chance that she will become
pregnant with twins. Other research has also found that women who gave
birth to twins were on average one inch taller than other mothers.
Women who eat a lot of dairy are also more likely to have twins
Just like humans, cows also produce IGF and release it into their milk. One
study that
compared twin birth rates from vegan and non-vegan mothers discovered
that those who consumed dairy were five times more likely to have twins.
Twins interact with each other in the womb
Research done
on twins at 14 weeks of gestation showed that they were seen reaching
for each other. Four weeks later, the twins in the womb touched each
other more often than they touched their own bodies.
'Mirror Image Twins' look like exact reflections of each other
An estimated 25% of identical twins will
develop directly facing each other.
Traits include one being left-handed while the other is right-handed.
They may also have birthmarks on the opposite sides of their bodies.
Some conjoined twins can hear each other’s thoughts and see through each other’s eyes
Krista and Tatiana Hogan were
born attached at the head
and share a thalamus (the part of the brain that controls physical
sensations and motor functions). This apparently allows them to see,
hear and also feel what the other one does.
A woman's body will adjust in strange ways after having twins
A
mother's chest can heat up or cool down to regulate the temperature
while holding her baby on her chest. When it comes to twins, each breast
can
independently adjust its own temperature to account for each child.
The highest rate of twin births is in Central Africa
Central Africa has more than
18 twins per 1,000 births. It’s especially high in Benin, where 27.9 out of
every 1000 births are twins. The lowest number of twin births can be
found in Asia and Latin America.
BONUS: Nearly half of twins invent their own languages
Around
40% of twins form their own languages before they learn one that we can
understand. Here's an adorable example of what they would sound like...