Cândido Godói

The notorious Nazi doctor Josef Mengele, who had conducted twin "studies" in Germany and experiments with twins in Auschwitz, is known to have fled to South America as the Allies were closing in on the Nazi German regime. The Argentine historian Jorge Camarasa has suggested that Mengele conducted experiments on women in the area, which could be responsible for the high ratio of twins.[8] According to some commentators, about the time of Mengele's arrival in southern Brazil in 1963, the incidence of twins began to increase, allegedly leading to the current rate of twinning at 1 in 10, over half of whom are dizygotic (fraternal).[4][9] However, such speculation has been disputed by local historian, Paulo Sauthier, who says Mengele did not study twins during his time in Brazil. Moreover, according to geneticists, the most likely explanation for the high frequency of twins is genetic isolation and inbreeding.[4][9][10] Records indicate that the high frequency of twins predates Mengele's arrival to South America.[11]

This phenomenon of a large number of twin births is not unique to Cândido Godói, and has also been observed in the town of Igbo-Ora in Nigeria and the village of Kodinhi in India.