• Question: What comes first- a chicken or an egg

    Asked by romins47 to Daniel, Jon, Louise, Sharon, Zoe on 22 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Sharon Sneddon

      Sharon Sneddon answered on 21 Jun 2010:

      Gosh, what a tricky question!! As I am an embryologist who works on eggs and embryos, I am going to say egg, as you need an embryo to make that chicken!!

    • Photo: Jon Copley

      Jon Copley answered on 21 Jun 2010:

      Egg.

      The first chicken was formed when an egg of something a bit like a chicken combined with the sperm of something a bit like a chicken, and the combination of their particular genetic material produced the first chicken.

      Because that egg existed as an unfertilised egg before it met that sperm and combined to form the first chicken, I think the egg came first. But it wasn’t a “chicken’s egg”…

    • Photo: Louise Dash

      Louise Dash answered on 21 Jun 2010:

      I’d have to say the egg!

      The theory of evolution implies that the first chicken must have come from an egg that was laid by a creature that was very similar to a chicken, but a bit different. Over time, these creatures would have become more and more chicken-like. So if you look at it from this point of view, the egg would have come first.

      What do you think?

    • Photo: Zoe Duck

      Zoe Duck answered on 22 Jun 2010:

      Neither- they both came at the same time!

      Chickens and eggs are the result of many years of evolution and both came gradually into existance as we know them. Cells came first then joined together to form animals that then evolved new ways to reproduce. Eventually something like the chicken appeared which laid something like eggs

Comments