• iconNews
  • videos
  • entertainment
  • Home
  • News
    • UK News
    • US News
    • Australia
    • Ireland
    • World News
    • Weird News
    • Viral News
    • Sport
    • Technology
    • Science
    • True Crime
    • Travel
  • Entertainment
    • Celebrity
    • TV & Film
    • Netflix
    • Music
    • Gaming
    • TikTok
  • LAD Originals
    • Say Maaate to a Mate
    • Daily Ladness
    • Lad Files
    • UOKM8?
    • FreeToBe
    • Extinct
    • Citizen Reef
  • Advertise
  • Terms
  • Privacy & Cookies
  • LADbible Group
  • UNILAD
  • SPORTbible
  • GAMINGbible
  • Tyla
  • UNILAD Tech
  • FOODbible
  • License Our Content
  • About Us & Contact
  • Jobs
  • Latest
  • Topics A-Z
  • Authors
Facebook
Instagram
X
Threads
Snapchat
TikTok
YouTube

LAD Entertainment

YouTube

LAD Stories

Submit Your Content
Scientists think they have finally found answer to age-old chicken and egg debate

Home> News> Science

Published 17:22 9 Nov 2024 GMT

Scientists think they have finally found answer to age-old chicken and egg debate

It's one of life's great mysteries...

Joe Harker

Joe Harker

What came first, the chicken or the egg?

It's one of life's great mysteries because you can't have a chicken without an egg, but equally you can't have an egg without a chicken.

This conundrum of logic has provided plenty of philosophical puzzlement over the years and served as the inspiration for an excellent closing joke in the acclaimed movie Chicken Run.

Advert

But as to the question for what actually did come first, a team of scientists from the University of Geneva believe they've definitively proven the answer.

In their study the team studied a creature called Chromosphaera perkinsii, a single cell organism discovered in 2017 in marine sediments around Hawaii.

Apparently this little thing goes back over a billion years, even before the first animals roamed our planet, and it has solved a debate humans wanted to know the answer to for yonks.

You have to have a chicken to lay an egg, right? (Getty Stock Photo)
You have to have a chicken to lay an egg, right? (Getty Stock Photo)

The scientists found that this ancient species which has been around for ages is able to form multicellular structures which are incredibly similar to animal embryos.

Advert

In essence, this means that nature had the tools to make eggs before it could make animals and long before it could make chickens.

That would mean that the definitive answer to 'chicken or egg' would be a conclusive win for the egg, and indeed there were many species which laid eggs running around the planet long before anything close to a chicken came along.

On the other hand that seems somewhat like cheating because of course eggs existed before chickens were a thing.

When people want to know what came first between the chicken or the egg we all know they're really thinking about a chicken or a chicken egg.

But then if you need a chicken to lay an egg, where did the first chicken come from if not from the egg? (Getty Stock Photo)
But then if you need a chicken to lay an egg, where did the first chicken come from if not from the egg? (Getty Stock Photo)

Advert

Did eggs exist before chickens? Yes, because chickens as we would recognise as such originated from an animal called the red junglefowl about 10,000 years ago and eggs have been around for so much longer.

Dinosaurs were laying eggs and they roamed around a lot longer than 10,000 years ago.

That's basically opening up a whole new can of worms around whether you define eggs by what's in them or where they came from.

Confused? Don't be, it's quite simple.

At some point a red junglefowl laid an egg with the first chicken in it, and if that egg is classed as a chicken egg because it had a chicken in it then the egg came first and the first chicken hatched from it.

Advert

Conversely, if you think that since a red junglefowl laid the egg that makes it a red junglefowl egg then the first chicken laid the first chicken egg and the chicken actually came first.

Basically, the right answer is probably egg, but feel free to argue the chicken's corner if you like.

Featured Image Credit: Getty Stock Images

Topics: Animals, Science, Weird, History

Joe Harker
Joe Harker

Joe graduated from the University of Salford with a degree in Journalism and worked for Reach before joining the LADbible Group. When not writing he enjoys the nerdier things in life like painting wargaming miniatures and chatting with other nerds on the internet. He's also spent a few years coaching fencing. Contact him via [email protected]

X

@MrJoeHarker

Advert

Advert

Advert

Choose your content:

5 mins ago
2 hours ago
3 hours ago
  • 5 mins ago

    Major warning over viral 'limitless pill' as doctors explain it can cause deadly disease

    Experts have urged people against using the drug in any form

    News
  • 2 hours ago

    Trump’s ‘Doomsday plane’ that could mean you only have five minutes left to live takes unusual four-hour trip

    President Trump's Doomsday plane was spotted in the skies above the US on Tuesday 17 June

    News
  • 3 hours ago

    Gut-wrenching video shows moment students dangle from balcony to escape Air India crash

    241 passengers and staff on the flight sadly died in last week's aviation disaster

    News
  • 3 hours ago

    Brit woman dies of rabies after being scratched by puppy on holiday

    British grandmother Yvonne Ford contracted rabies while in Morocco

    News
  • 700-year-old sword dubbed 'real life Excalibur' was found stuck inside rock
  • Scientists believe they have found 'location of Noah's Ark' after deciphering 3,000 year old map
  • Scientists think they have answer to whether Megalodon shark still exists in sea
  • Mystery of 800-year-old ‘Well Man’ skeleton dumped in castle well has finally been solved