Double The Cuteness! World's First Identical Twin Puppies Born In South Africa

The world's first twin pup has been born and it's total cuteness overload!

A report by BBC said Kurt de Cramer, a veterinarian in South Africa, helped an Irish wolfhound give birth to the rare pair. The report said the bitch gave birth via Caesarean section after De Cramer noticed that she is in an unusual pain. He also noticed that the bulge on the dog's uterus was too big for a normal pregnancy.

De Cramer thought the bulging was just caused by excess fluid, but when he opened the uterus, he was utterly surprised. The pair's umbilical cords were attached to the same placenta.

"When I realised that the puppies were of the same gender and that they had very similar markings, I also immediately suspected that they might be identical twins having originated from the splitting of an embryo," says de Cramer.

Science Alert explained that the pair is called monozygotic twins. It notes the biological phenomenon has been seen in mammals such as horses and pigs, but is very rare in dogs.

Medical Dictionary defines it as twins coming from one zygote. This results to same sex and identical genetic constitution of two organisms.

A dog has given birth to the first identical twin puppies https://t.co/KQswvWOc0k pic.twitter.com/a7L3ACV2nd

— BBC Earth (@BBCEarth) August 31, 2016

To confirm if the Irish wolfhound has really given birth to the first monozygotic twins in dogs, DNA profiling was done by collecting samples of their blood. The results were published in online library, Wiley. The study concluded that the DNA profiles of the twins were identical at all 40 genetic markers.

Carolynne Joone, one of the researchers who conducted the DNA profiling, said it was fortunate that the bitch underwent C-section since no one would likely notice that the pair was monozygotic twins if the bitch had a natural birth.

Although similar in physical appearance, they showed slight differences size and makings, which according to the researchers is perfectly normal as in the cases of human twins.

"To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of confirmed monozygotic twinning in the dog," they concluded.