Scientists have finally given an answer to this eternal question: which is older, the egg or the chicken?
The evolution of species still poses questions to which humans have not found answers. Although modern science is capable of explaining many phenomena and their origins, the further back in time it goes, the more it encounters gray areas.
As science explains, notably thanks to the inspired work of Charles Darwin on the evolution of species in 1859, the living beings that populate the Earth today are the descendants of ancient species that are now extinct. These developments are of course not instantaneous and take considerable time. Beyond morphological modifications, evolution can also lead species to change their living environment, moving from the sea to the land for example. Changes which were accompanied by crossings between species. This is how the famous question was born: which came first, the chicken or the egg? A question that fascinates and on which everyone has their own theory.
An article from BBC Science Focus finally provides a serious answer to this old question. For Luis Villazon, a zoologist who answers many scientific questions for the BBC, it’s simple: it was the egg that arrived first. As he explains, eggs are much older than chickens. He elaborates: “dinosaurs laid eggs, the first fish that crawled out of the sea laid eggs, and the strange creatures that swam in the warm, shallow seas of the Cambrian period 500 million years ago ‘years have also laid some. Although the expert admits that they are not chicken eggs, they are eggs nonetheless.
Mr. Villazon explains that modern chickens belong to the same species as the wild rooster, native to Southeast Asia. He adds that it is most likely that this species was crossed with another breed of rooster, the Sonnerat rooster, originally native to India, when these two species were domesticated around 10,000 years ago. So, over time, these breeds crossed with each other until individuals very close to chickens laid the first egg which gave birth to the first chicken as we know it today.
The expert nevertheless specifies that the answer to this question may vary if the question is asked differently. In his formula cited above, it is not specified whether the expected response must relate specifically to a chicken egg. If the question were instead “which came first: the chicken or the chicken’s egg?”, then the correct answer would be the chicken. Who herself would have given birth to the first chicken egg. One wonders whether this question relates more to science or philosophy.
