same or different?

I've been looking through my lithops picture folders (you can tell I miss them) and came across these photos of the aucampiae (these two have been featured here before). They are home-improvement store kids, but looked relatively healthy, so I couldn't walk by (you normally see horrible things done to lithops in those stores and realise they won't survive long if you bought them... although cacti are even less fortunate, with eyes and flowers glued to them). Well, here are two pictures of the same two plants before and after the annual change. On the first picture they look like two different aucampiae to me: not only different pattern but also different color. The one on the right is probably older, the one on the left is probably overfed.
Anyway, on the second picture they're like twins! How come?



Several months later they've become quite beauties!
I even keep the last photo as my netbook wallpaper :)



(1024x587)

Thanks for your comment