• Question: Scientifically, what came first, the chicken or the egg?

    Asked by courtneysaaur to David, Helen, Ian, rhysphillips, Sarah on 17 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by birsejwh, hevaarawr.
    • Photo: Ian van der Linde

      Ian van der Linde answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      A mutant chicken ancestor would have laid the first egg, so it was the chicken! It probably would have been way back in evolutionary history, so was probably more like a reptile that eventually evolved into a chicken.

    • Photo: Rhys Phillips

      Rhys Phillips answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      Nobody knows….

    • Photo: David Corne

      David Corne answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      Let’s figure this out once and for all. Logically, the first ever chicken (let’s call her Maureen) would be the first creature capable of mating with a cockerel and producing a fertile chick. By definition (since Maureen was the first chicken), Maureen’s mum (let’s call her Hermione) was not, genetically, a chicken, but was pretty close. Maureen was a mixture of Hermione and Ron (her dad) genes, with a special mutation or two that made her the first chicken. Now, this new first-ever-chicken DNA would have been part of Maureen ever since the word go — i.e.it was there when Maureen was an egg. So, Hermione (non-chicken) laid a chicken egg. The egg came first. I’m sure Hermione laid some other eggs, but their DNA may have been scrambled.

    • Photo: Helen Fletcher

      Helen Fletcher answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      Errrmmm… can you go through that again David?

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