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Science Already Has A Clear Answer To The Old Question: The Egg Came Long Before The Chicken, According To Studies On Animal Evolution
For centuries, the question seemed unsolvable. After all, what came first: the egg or the chicken? But current science offers a straightforward explanation — and it points out that the egg came first.
The confusion exists because many people think only of the chicken egg. But scientists explain that eggs with hard shells appeared about 300 million years ago. The modern chicken, on the other hand, appeared only 10,000 years ago.
This time difference makes it clear that the egg came first, long before the first chicken hatched.
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According to researchers, the chicken we know today hatched from an egg laid by an ancestral bird.
This bird resembled a chicken but was not exactly like today’s chickens. It was from this egg that the first modern chicken emerged.
This explanation is linked to the evolution of species. Over millions of years, characteristics have changed.
A small genetic adjustment may have led to a common egg giving birth to an animal with the characteristics of the first true chicken.
But some advocate the opposite idea, based on a protein called ovocleidin-17. This substance is involved in the formation of the eggshell and is present in chickens.
Some argue that if the protein belongs to the chicken, then the chicken must have appeared first.
However, ovocleidin-17 also exists in other birds, which weakens this argument. It does not prove that the chicken came before the egg.
The scientific answer, therefore, is that the chicken came first.
And the summary is simple:
– Eggs have existed for over 1 billion years;
– Eggs with hard shells: 300 million years;
– Modern chickens: only 10,000 years.
With information from Canal Rural.
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