Which came first, the chicken or the egg? A scientific look at an age-old puzzle

The causal dilemma of "which came first, the chicken or the egg" is meant to express the question of "whether the (chicken) egg came first, or the chicken came first" (the chicken lays the egg, the egg hatches the chicken, so which one first appeared in this world, the chicken or the egg). This chicken-and-egg question has also often stirred ancient philosophers to explore and discuss the origin of life and the universe. Let us take a look together below!

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

According to a report by the US website Live Science, the long-running debate over which came first, the chicken or the egg, has finally been solved, answering this ancient puzzle that has left people baffled. After studying dinosaur egg fossils from 77 million years ago, scientists announced that the answer to the puzzle is that the egg came first and the chicken came afterwards.

77 million years ago, when sea levels rose, a small carnivorous dinosaur mother had to abandon her unhatched treasure and flee for her life alone. 77 million years later, paleontologists found five surviving incomplete eggs in a nest of piled sand and soil. The nest was half a meter wide and weighed as much as 50 kg, equivalent to the weight of one person. Francois, curator of the Dinosaur Hall at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Alberta, Canada, and a paleoecology researcher, said: "This nest has some features in common with birds. Through in-depth analysis and study of these features, it will help us reveal the ancient unresolved puzzle: which came first, the chicken or the egg?"

The answer to the debate over which came first, the chicken or the egg

Whether the egg came first or the chicken came first has long been a hot topic of debate. Recently, Darla Zelenitsky, a paleontologist at the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada, said that after studying dinosaur egg fossils from 77 million years ago, the clear answer to the puzzle has surfaced: dinosaurs first built nests similar to bird nests and laid eggs similar to bird eggs, and then dinosaurs evolved into birds (the chicken is also a kind of bird). This makes it clear that eggs existed before chickens. Chickens evolved from these carnivorous dinosaurs that laid eggs similar to chicken eggs.

This nest discovered in North America provides the strongest evidence that bird-like or chicken-like eggs appeared before chickens. Therefore, the original puzzle can now be rewritten as: which came first, the dinosaur or the egg?