Meet Kalani and Jarani, the unique twin girls

Kalani (left) and her twin sister, Jarani.
Kalani (left) and her twin sister, Jarani.  Photo: Facebook

Little Kalani and Jarani were always going to get lots of attention. After all, everyone loves to see a set of gorgeous twins.

But these two girls have something extra special about them: they each inherited different skin tones from their parents.

Kalani has taken after their mum, Whitney Meyer, who is Caucasian. Meanwhile, Jarani has inherited her darker complexion from her African-American dad, Tomas Dean.

Meyer, from Quincy, Illinois, told her local news station KHQA that she'd hoped it would happen, but was still surprised when she first saw the girls at their birth nine months ago.

"I wanted to believe it, but it's so rare I didn't think it'd happen to my twins. But sure enough they're biracial twins!" she said.

Speaking to the BBC in 2011, Dr Jim Wilson, a population geneticist at the University of Edinburgh, said that a mixed race couple who are expecting twins have a one in 500 chance of the babies having different skin colours.  

It only applies to non-identical twins, because they are conceived from two eggs fertilised by two sperm.

Meyer has shared some photos of her girls on social media, explaining their differences.

"We're chromosome twins. Kalani is light with blue eyes and Jarani is the darker one with brown eyes," Meyer recently wrote on Facebook.

She also shared that Kalani has lots of energy and is crawling, while the more chilled Jarani loves to eat and has yet to crawl.