• Question: what came first the chicken or the egg

    Asked by Hannahp to Adam, Adele, Deborah, Matt, Samantha on 12 Jun 2017.
    • Photo: Adam Hargreaves

      Adam Hargreaves answered on 12 Jun 2017:

      Hi Hannahp,
      I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the egg came first, simply because animals like Crocodilians (the group of animals which contains the crocodiles which are still around today, but also other species which are now extinct) were around for millions of years before birds, and they give birth by laying eggs.

    • Photo: Deborah Aitken

      Deborah Aitken answered on 12 Jun 2017:

      I think the chicken came first because only a chicken can make the shell of an egg, so for there to be an egg shell there must have been a chicken.

      http://metro.co.uk/2010/07/13/the-chicken-came-first-not-the-egg-scientists-prove-447738/

    • Photo: Matthew Lee

      Matthew Lee answered on 12 Jun 2017:

      Theres more than one explanation to this, but the same answer for both. The egg.

      1. if you literally mean a chickens egg or a chicken, which came first. It is the chicken egg, laid by a bird that was not a chicken (called a proto-chicken)
      2. if you mean eggs in general and a chicken, which came first. Then it is the egg in general because chickens are a recent evolutionary developed species and egg laying animals where around before chickens.

      Give this video a watch (AsapScience is really good and they have loads of cool videos on lots of different science topics) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1a8pI65emDE

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