Scientists have finally discovered whether the chicken or the egg came first

It’s a question humans have been asking themselves almost since time began, but scientists finally think they’ve discovered whether the chicken or the egg came first.

Humans have bred chickens for an awfully long time, dating back to around 10,000 years ago, but one expert has spoken about the existence of eggs as being much older.

Luis Villazon is a science and technology educator who also trained in zoology. He says [via BBC Science Focus]: "Eggs are much older than chickens.

"Dinosaurs laid eggs, the fish that first crawled out of the sea laid eggs, and the weird articulated monsters that swam in the warm shallow seas of the Cambrian Period 500 million years ago also laid eggs.”

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And while these aren’t chicken eggs, “the egg definitely came first".

Now, that’s all well and good, but what about the first chicken egg?

Forming his opinion, Villazon considers how the chicken as we know it today was first bred as a result of the red jungle fowl of Southeast Asia being “hyrbridised” with grey jungle fowl around 10,000 years ago.

So, his answer in the end is quite simple.

“At some point in evolutionary history when there were no chickens, two birds that were almost-but-not-quite chickens mated and laid an egg that hatched into the first chicken."

Therefore, if the question is what came first – the chicken or the chicken’s egg – then it’s the chicken’s egg that came first.

It’s a little complicated, and depends on your own set of opinions and definition of the question in some respects, but there is a finally something resembling a clear answer.

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