Which came first, the chicken or the(chicken) egg?

Which came first? The chicken or the(chicken) egg?

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I actually wrote about this not that long ago (and may have ruffled some feathers, oops :oops: ). The conclusion that most scientists are coming to these days is that the chicken came before the chicken egg (because she had to exist in order to produce it), but long after the egg in general. The egg that that first chicken hatched from was laid by a proto-chicken, a bird with many of the traits we've come to know in chickens, but not quite all of them. The father of that first chicken would have supplied the rest of the genes to what that proto-chicken passed on to its offspring in order to make that chick a 'real' chicken.

It's kind of a gray area because it depends a little bit on whether you consider Red Junglefowl to be chickens as well (and whether you believe in evolution or creation, of course), them being the ancestors of modern chickens. Technically speaking, they are not exactly the same species, as others of the junglefowl species were bred to them in order to introduce some of the most well-known genes in chickens, like yellow skin. It was through man's intervention that the true modern chicken was created. Today's Red Junglefowl are likely not genetically exactly the same as the Red Junglefowl that existed before chickens, either, due to escaped fowl over centuries interbreeding with them in the jungles of their home range.

It's... a subject I know a little bit about. 🤭


Edited to add some notes​
 
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