The four-year-old ‘mirror image’ twins do everything in exactly opposite ways

The four-year-old ‘mirror image’ twins do everything from hair parting to holding a pen in exactly opposite ways.

Leah and Erin Sullivan, from Inverness, Scotland, are like ‘two sides of the same coin’ according to their mother Zoe, 42.

While Leah shares her hair on the left, Erin shares her hair on the right and both prefer opposite hands for throwing or writing.

In fact, the couple sleeps in the exact same position, but on different sides.

They are ‘mirrored twins’ – a little-known phenomenon that means that otherwise identical siblings are asymmetrical in their appearance and how they move or interact.

The phenomenon is believed to affect up to a quarter of identical twins, and Zoe found that her twins were affected last year.

Stay-at-home mom Zoe said, “When their hair is up it’s really hard to tell them apart!

Leah’s hair grew faster, but it wasn’t until they were both about two and a half years old that their fringes started to grow out and I realized it was parting on different sides!

It didn’t matter what you did, like trying to separate it in the middle or the other side, and it’s really the only way you can tell them apart!

‘Then we realized they were mirror twins. We think Erin could be left handed, but Leah is absolutely right handed.

‘After I saw it, I looked it up on the internet, it can be very extreme!’

She said that Leah is usually on the left in photos, with Erin on the right, and they walk with opposite dominant feet.

And when they face each other, it looks exactly like they are looking in the mirror.

Their nursery also uses their unique hairstyles to tell the difference, but there may be even more symmetries that reveal themselves as the girls get older.

Zoe added: ‘They are completely different in personality. Almost like different sides of the same coin.

Any piece of personality Leah has, Erin doesn’t, and vice versa.

“Erin is very straightforward – what you see is what you get – but Leah is bolder and the opposite!

‘You see quite a few twins who are similar in personality, but with them it is as if one person has been split in two.

“Leah has a really good sense of humor, but Erin doesn’t quite get it – she’s a lot more serious.”

Identical twins are the result of a single fertilized egg splitting into two embryos between four and eight days after conception.

Mirror twins are thought to be the result of splitting the eggs, even later, between nine and 12 days, although this has never been proven.

Eleven-year-old Zoe said, “Twins are by my side in the family because my grandfather was twins and I have twin aunts, but they were a little shocked anyway!

“ I also had a pair of non-identical twins four years earlier, and I think a part of me knew deep down that they were going to be twins, but I was more shocked that they were going to be identical. ”

The girls were born 27 weeks prematurely on January 25, 2016, on the eighth birthday of her first twins.

Leah weighed 3 pounds 4 oz and Erin 2 pounds 6 oz at birth, and were hospitalized for six and 10 weeks, respectively.

Leah suffered from a collapsed lung, Erin contracted sepsis and extra fluid in her brain, and both girls had heart murmurs.

At one point, Erin weighed just 810g, and with seven other kids at home at the time, both parents were exhausted.

Zoe, who is married to the girls ‘father, Ben, said:’ It was a very traumatic time.

“Ben did half days so I could take care of the other kids while I was in the hospital and then we’d switch – I have no idea how we did it!”

Zoe admitted that it was nearly impossible to tell the girls apart when they were babies.