• Question: which came first the chicken or the egg?

    Asked by rockstar98 to Cat, Daz, Holly, Johnson, Pamela on 22 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by fayeadamou, smartykate1997.
    • Photo: Pamela Lithgow

      Pamela Lithgow answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      Hello again rockstar98,
      I think you asked this question in one of the chats.
      I think that the egg probably came first. I think this because I think the chicken probably evolved from something else. This would have been a gradual change where differences in the DNA which make the pre-chicken animal gradually changed it to become more and more like a chicken. Then when a pre-chicken animal which was very much like a chicken laid an egg with the specific changes which would make a chicken the chicken then hatched from it. Therefore, I think the egg that would produce the first chicken came first.
      Also not only chickens lay eggs, dinosaurs had eggs(!), so I think eggs definitely come first!
      Hope that helps
      Pam
      🙂

    • Photo: Johnson Soronnadi

      Johnson Soronnadi answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      Based on theory of evolution the two would have co-existed simultaneously from a closed related bird whose DNA have gradually changed to become more like a chiken than a bird. The final mutation would have occured in the egg and birds to result into a full chicken. In this light, both the egg and the chicken evolved simultaneously from birds that were not chickens and did not lay chicken eggs but gradually became more and more like chickens over a period of time.

    • Photo: Cat O'Connor

      Cat O'Connor answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      Hey Rockstar98,

      I think Pam answered this question really well. Now you have to think about what came before the egg!

      Great chatting with you on live chats,

      Cat

    • Photo: Darren Braddick

      Darren Braddick answered on 22 Jun 2011:

      Hi rockstar 98, fayeadamou and smartykate1997.

      I’m sorry this is such a late reply..

      It’s such a hard question. It seems like no logical or obvious answer can be found! I personally think the chicken came first. If you believe in evolution, you believe that humans and monkeys both came from a similar ancient species, which probably looked a bit like humans and monkeys! We can assume the same is true for chicken, so the name chicken is what we give to the creature we see these days, but let’s assume its ancestor was a little different.

      Now, all creatures make eggs to reproduce, but some grow this egg inside (like humans, in the form of a baby) and some make the egg which hatches from a shell (like birds, and chickens). We can assume that once upon a time, there maybe was only ONE method of giving birth – of course it is more likely to be eggs (like birds) than the way of humans.

      We can assume this because the method humans use is quite new, and actually is a big big reason of why humans can become so intelligent. The growth in the womb of a baby allows a much bigger brain! The brain of birds is always very small, because the size of its egg is completely limited from the first moment.

      So, I say that the egg came first! And then eventually the same thing which made the egg.. Became chicken 🙂

      I hope that helps answer you all! Please forgive me that it took so long so reply!

      Daz

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