Maria and Teresa Tapia Maria and Teresa Tapia Maria and Teresa Tapia (born April 8, 2010) are formerly conjoined twins born in the Dominican Republic. The twins were joined by their lower chest and abdomen and were therefore classified as omphalopagus sharing a liver, pancreas, and a small portion of their small intestine. On November 7, 2011, the twins underwent a successful separation surgery at the Children's Hospital of Richmond in Virginia. For every 200,000 live births, conjoined twins are born. Conjoined twins are identical and of the same sex one hundred percent of the time and are more common in females than in
Conjoined twins Two-Headed Nightingale" and appeared with the Barnum Circus. In 1912, they died of tuberculosis, 17 hours apart. Giovanni and Giacomo Tocci, from Locana, Italy, were immortalized in Mark Twain's short story "Those Extraordinary Twins" as fictitious twins Angelo and Luigi. The Toccis, born in 1877, were dicephalus tetrabrachius twins, having one body with two legs, two heads, and four arms. From birth they were forced by their parents to perform and never learned to walk, as each twin controlled one leg (in modern times, physical therapy allows twins like the Toccis to learn to walk on their own). They are