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Did the chicken really come first?

Someone who I'll keep anonymous just mailed me in relation to my post yesterday:

 

I know you didn't ask (nor was it your point) -- but the Egg came first. It was laid by some animal that was really, really genetically close to a chicken.

I have to say, I'm not sure I agree. Didn't the creature that gave birth to the first egg have to exist before the egg it laid?

But then, come to think of it, maybe the egg from which the first chicken came was laid by something that was not a chicken and was perhaps formed in some other way than the usual egg 'n' sperm method? Which would mean it would have come first, no?

Q.E.D. the chicken (or other lifeform) came first! ;)

Posted: Thursday, June 21, 2007 3:06 PM by richardt
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Comments

Kevin Daly said:

If we assume chickens to be birds (which is I think a safe assumption), then it is not necessary to allow for any unusual means of arrival for the ancestral chicken, since the life cycle of birds was well-established by this time and essentially inherited from their dinosaur ancestors.

Which means that we can safely assume that an egg containing the first chicken was laid by a er, proto-chicken.

So the egg came first.

# June 22, 2007 1:53 AM

richardt said:

Ahhh, but where to do you draw the line between what is a chicken and what is a proto-chicken. If the proto-chicken is enough of a chicken, doesn't that make it a chicken ... which would come first.

Also, as far as I remember from biology, what emerges from the ovaries of most animals is something called an "egg", however, note that the emergent egg-cell is not yet encased in a shell before it divides the first time. To many, this would be where the pair of cells would be called a chicken embryo. This would mean that the chicken embryo existed before what we could call an "egg" in the chicken-like sense.

So, the chicken came first, no? (Can you tell it's Friday :D)

# June 22, 2007 5:10 PM
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