South African researchers have found the first known pair of identical twin puppies.

Scientists from the University of Pretoria were presented with the pair of wolfhound puppies after the mother dog's owner brought them to her local vet, Kurt de Cramer .

They confirmed in a research paper that the male puppies are the first known identical twin dogs.

The paper said: “To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of monozygotic twinning in the dog confirmed using DNA profiling".