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The great evolutionary question – which came first, the chicken or the egg – is a classic causality dilemma. An expert, however, has an answer to the age-old question – although it is not as definitive as many would like.
Way before they were a breakfast favourite, eggs were developed from vertebrates known as amniotes which later evolved to lay eggs thus freeing them to inhabit dry land.
It’s been hypothesized eggs were first used in human food by the ancient Egyptians and Romans, who used eggs in their cakes and breads, likely as a binding agent.
The first hard-shelled eggs emerged far sooner than chickens, experts believe.
Dr Ellen Mather, a palaeontologist from Flinders University specialising in ancient birds, told the MailOnline: “If you frame it as referring to eggs as a whole, then the answer is most definitely eggs.”
The earliest fossil record of eggs originates more than a whopping 300 million years ago.
Humans have been consuming eggs for roughly 6 million years.
Chickens, on the other hand, have only been around for a few thousand years whereas eggs were around during the time of the dinosaurs.
“The first eggs laid on land would have come much later during the Carboniferous between 358 to 298 million years ago, laid by early reptiles,” said Dr Mather.
Eggs’ origin was more likely a product of modern reptiles including snakes which, according to Dr Mathers, emerged during the Early Jurassic period and laid by dinosaurs.
These ancient eggs were likely to resemble the way lizards and birds’ eggs look today.
The time difference between the egg and the chicken sits at around 100 million years ahead in favour of the egg.
“The first true chickens would have hatched from eggs laid by partially domesticated red jungle fowl,” said Dr Mathers.
However, she added: “Depending on how you interpret the question, both answers could be correct.”
Dr Mathers concluded: “If the question is interpreted as referring to chicken eggs, then the answer would be a chicken.”
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