Strange Organism Just Solved the Chicken Or The Egg Question!

[@Jerry_Fried]

It’s always been apparent to me that in the course of evolution, there was a bird that was not quite a chicken that laid an egg from which a chicken emerged. The egg came first.

[@linecraftman3907]

The question really is, what came first the egg or animal that lays eggs.

[@Psychopathicviewer]

​@@linecraftman3907 Yep. And the answer is what we know as a hard shell laid egg comes from a chain of genetic mutations, the same as every other product of evolution. It's a philosophical question that was never meant to be taken literally. Or maybe as a fun debate topic for kids.

[@nunyabusy]

@@Psychopathicviewera question that was never meant to be answered? Now there’s a mythology! 😵‍💫

[@lost4468yt]

It's neither, since species aren't real, but human abstractions that break down when examined closely. We just use them in science because otherwise it's too difficult to communicate.

[@noahgettheark]

​@@lost4468yt species are real though? Literally there are species and sub species that belong in the same family. Idk what you're yapping about, but you probably think you're saying some profound shit that makes you sound smart. I hate to burst your bubble, but no.

[@FlnSkr]

1:21 error: there is a mammal that lays eggs: Plattypus

[@jackvos8047]

And echidnas

[@patstaysuckafreeboss8006]

And people who fill those cartons of eggs at the grocery store

[@Corum001]

Monotremes

[@ThatBoyBent]

Anteaters but different kinds of them.

[@jackvos8047]

@@ThatBoyBent that would be echidnas.

[@My-Pal-Hal]

I solved that decades ago. Eggs come first for breakfast. And chicken for lunch or dinner. Simple. The real question is where Chicken Fried Steak fits in. I could eat that any time of day. .... another mystery of the universe 😋

[@Nobody-df4is]

That's deep, man.

[@wellesmorgado4797]

Best. Answer. Ever.!!!!!

[@Vince_F]

😂

[@My-Pal-Hal]

@@Vince_F What The Hell You Laughing At ??? I have proof of the eggs Timeline,.. SITTING IN MY SINK 😂 😏 I should probably wash those, for Scientific Purposes obviously 🤣 ... Science , and dawn dishwashing liquid Now There's A Science Fact. The Egg came before DAWN. But DAWN gets rid of Egg. So what quotient of DAWN, TO REMOVE ALL EGGS ??? Because that'll be when the chicken comes first. Simple Logic 🤣 .... yeah, that Was Deep HAPPY HOLIDAYS 🥳🦃🎄🎉

[@jorrellds6520]

icon checks out

[@Bookstorewalla]

New Yorker Cartoon: A Chicken and Egg, langorous, both smoking, in bed. Chicken: "Well, I guess this settles THAT question."

[@MarcillaSmith]

You get that filth off my Internet

[@mikereid1195]

@@MarcillaSmith no incest, it was a snake egg!

[@XinDseal]

I remember a van that have drawing of an egg banging a chicken

[@stop-the-greed]

Ahhh science 😂😂

[@KenLieck]

The real question is "Which came first: the New Yorker cartoon, Sam Hurt's Eyebeam cartoon or a dozen other identical cartoons you can find on the internet?"

[@michaelzumpano7318]

I don’t know how you come up with great topics like this, day after day, year after year. This particular video blew my mind! Bravo.

[@Raydensheraj]

He checks out everyday new scientific papers and then presents the ones he seems interesting mixed with some research and history how scientists came to the conclusions the paper or subject is based on.

[@WJAlexander-o6t]

He makes it up

[@the80hdgaming]

The egg came first... They were in existence long before chickens... 🤣🤣🤣

[@alexbarber3310]

Exactly! Was just about to comment that too.

[@GregoryCarnegie]

Yeah all the articles online had this title, and I was like `but we already knew that; dinosaurs laid eggs`

[@DUKE_of_RAMBLE]

Except we know the question has only ever been about the Chicken or the *_CHICKEN Egg,_* not just eggs _in general..._ 😅 In either case, I would think it's always that the egg came first, regardless of the lifeform on Earth. 😊

[@mikereid1195]

Yuop, eggs came from dinosaurs, long before they evolved into chickens 😅

[@phae_c]

isn't the question obviously about a chicken egg though.. otherwise what's the point of the question, it's supposed to be hard to answer

[@rogerstancill5080]

Fascinating, but this still doesn't explain why the chicken crossed the road.

[@Scaliad]

@@rogerstancill5080 If it was a chicken, it wouldn't have crossed the road! ...Too dangerous!

[@Reoh0z]

To get to the other side.

[@NeonVisual]

Because he was coming up to a KFC

[@kevind8240]

Avoiding the chicken being stapled to anything

[@mikean7074]

The chicken crossed the road because there was a handsome looking cock on the other side

[@melijahv]

My teacher got mad at me when I was in kindergarten maybe first grade, she said no-one knows what came first the chicken or the egg, I quickly responded dinosaurs laid eggs. Not the first time a teacher hated me.

[@mikereid1195]

Eggs-zakly!

[@thomasherndon-io2gl]

You aren't alone 😊 proved teacher incorrect about the Darkside of the moon, there isn't one.

[@xmars8]

What came first? The laying egg dinosaur, or the egg?

[@melijahv]

@@xmars8 did you watch the video?

[@melijahv]

also I guess we should ask what came first cloning or evolution. my guess is cloning and then evolution. Evolution was from mistakes in the clone.

[@tessjuel]

A bit off topic but it reminds me of something my high school biology teacher taught us: a zygote is just a tool a gamete uses to make more gametes.

[@rezadaneshi]

I love science. Now I don't have to decide which based on eggs for breakfast and chicken for dinner.

[@angrypidgeon1714]

clearly tradition has the answer. We like eggs for breakfast because life ate eggs historically before it got to eat chickens, therefore we eat chicken for dinner. There's a reason it feels natural =]

[@CAMacKenzie]

What do you get if you cross a vampire with dynamite? Blastula. By the way, mammals DO have eggs, they just are fertilized and develop inside the mother. Well, except for monotremes, which lay eggs which develop outside.

[@MarcosElMalo2]

Enough with the yolks. Yema get mad.

[@KyrenaH]

Monotremes like echidnas and platypi lay eggs.

[@barthbrothers1]

If we apply the basic logical principles of cause and effect, both the egg and the chicken are designed as stages of a complete cycle. The egg - when impregnated - contains the information to make a chicken, and the chicken is needed to make the egg grow into a self-sustained chicken/hen. The whole lifespan, reproduction cycle, and the habitat, needs to be in place at the same time, and the “blueprint” had to be in place before the “Big bang”.

[@jimsmith556]

This answer didn't need that organism. Something that was almost a chicken laid the first egg from which hatched a chicken. The first chicken came from an egg. Therefore the egg came first.

[@Unknown17]

That's incredibly stupid. It's like the ancients deciding that everything was made of earth, air, fire or water just based on "logic."

[@jimsmith556]

@@Unknown17 You're not a deep thinker are you.

[@Unknown17]

@@jimsmith556 Not like you! Not at all like you. Never like you.

[@francineodonnell2598]

I love all the comments. Thanks for posting. Great vid Anton.

[@HolmesHobbies]

Well thats quite unexpected! Great vid!

[@HellaNorCal916]

The smile at the end always gets me. Thank you!

[@Reoh0z]

I always ended up smiling and waving back.

[@TiagoCavalcanti-ji6hu]

@@Reoh0z Weird and weirder. And the dude commenting on this totally normal ;)

[@Volatile-Tortoise]

I come here for two reasons: 1. The Smile 2. To be called Wonderful

[@pdz-pk4od]

Same here. It is not necessary.

[@TiagoCavalcanti-ji6hu]

@@Volatile-Tortoise ;)

[@agroforestryconsultancyroz3157]

So eggs were before animals, but a chicken egg also existed before the first chicken. In evolution animals change but from bird to chicken, but the generation that was declared chicken, started as an egg.

[@phae_c]

THIS except NO. this is actually the way i have always thought about it, except i believe we consider a chicken egg a chicken egg, because a chicken laid it no? not because a chicken is going to hatch from it. after all the egg is still formed entirely by the mother, only the new organism inside it, is the new organism. so based on that i think the chicken must have come first. the very first chicken to actually be considered a chicken in evolution, hatched from an egg that was laid by the last bird not yet considered a chicken, so that egg wasn't a chicken egg.

[@jonaseggen2230]

That chickens mum: "Wtf!"

[@phae_c]

@jonaseggen2230 the not-chicken's baby: be honest with me. am i adopted?

[@jonaseggen2230]

@@phae_c Made me think of the ugly duckling : )

[@kk111-1]

why was it even a question... that's what i can't get

[@kreynolds1123]

“...Except for mammals." monotremes are the exception among mammals in that they do lay eggs. The Duck-billed platypus, the Eastern and Western and Sir David's long-beaked, and short beaked echidna.

[@jonno2000]

Monotremes are a separate branch on the evolutionary tree to mammals. Richard Dawkins has very good explanations of this mis-categorising in his books 'The Selfish Gene' and 'Greatest Show on Earth - the evidence for Evolution'

[@kellydalstok8900]

@@jonno2000 They’re primitive mammals.

[@crunchyfrog63]

Mammals have eggs too. I should know since I've been through two egg retrieval procedures. In fact, we are considered amniotes, like birds and reptiles, only we don't produce external eggs, with the exception of monotremes. Our embryos and fetuses have all the amniote structures in utero though, such as chorion, amniotic sac, and yolk sac.

[@kreynolds1123]

@@crunchyfrog63 I did make the distinction "lay eggs" which might suggest not a placenta birth.

[@crunchyfrog63]

@@jonno2000 Richard Dawkins is a single individual, known for being somewhat of a contrarian, not known as a specialist in mammalian evolution. He has an opinion but it does not appear to be relevant to the overwhelming scientific consensus that monotremes are mammals.

[@rozzgrey801]

It's what I always thought, that something evolved into an egglike thing, so that came first.

[@HermitCrone]

Anton, this was such a fantastic video on the origins of the “egg”, and flagellate life forms. I had read an article about this discovery in the past week or so, but your video representations and narrative far surpassed it. Thank you for all of your educational videos! 🙏🙏🙏

[@ElecTrev]

So it seems the egg came first, is that why the chicken crossed the road?

[@commode7x]

So the ancestor of the chicken was the egg, which evolved into animals, then evolved into chicken. Now I need a T-shirt with that.

[@patriciaguenzler9150]

Thank you for sharing this with us 👍

[@SebSN-y3f]

Thank you very much Anton. You have just the right range of topics and I watch each of your videos with enthusiasm. For years. Thank you for your good work, which enriches us again and again.

[@tyronnedennis480]

Whoopi! Personally I thought the egg came first but wondered since i was a child. Now at 58 years finally get the confirmed answer! Crazy as it may seem I feel I will sleep better knowing this. Thank U Anton for your fantastic videos as always.

[@jimcurtis9052]

Wonderful as always Anton. Thank you. 🙂

[@waffleshredder6965]

This is why I watch your videos🔥SO FASCINATING 🧠🐸

[@ChelleLlewes]

My answer has always been: the egg. There were eggs long before there were chickens.

[@SevenSixTwo2012]

It took an egg first to develop an animal, then evolution followed. An egg is like a macro-cell, a very primitive life production container.

[@SierraSierraFoxtrot]

That's an interesting viewpoint!

[@tubbychaz1]

So it wasn’t aliens?

[@Michaelkaydee]

What's it's origin?

[@richardzeitz54]

Before the chicken, there was an avian raptor. And mammals have ovaries. Ova means egg. So even placentals create an ovum. So all vertebrates depend on eggs.

[@sarahchristine2345]

Wow, huge discovery!!

[@SHPR2013]

This is easy, as a egg can't orgasm obviously the Chicken came first😂😂😂

[@Maciek22222]

Hello Anton

[@user-vp1sc7tt4m]

Anton, thank you for sharing this breakthrough. This Chromosphaera perkinsii (ichthyosporean) organism is strange and uniquely exciting. A free-living organism that forms multicellular structures similar to animal embryos? I look forward to more research and study if it's DNA and hopefully, other discoveries like this one!!!

[@GrannyTheftAuto]

Chicken is not an old spieces, so eggs came first.

[@JZsBFF]

*species

[@FreemanVashier]

In 2010, scientists at the universities of Sheffield and Warwick announced that chickens came before eggs because they discovered that a protein called ovocledidin-17 (OC-17) is vital for shell production

[@jjeanniton]

I like your answer😊😊😊😊😊

[@memyname1771]

Rather narrow minded "scientists"! If only chickens produce the protein needed to make the egg shell, are chickens surrogate mothers for all the other birds, insects, arachnids, reptiles, amphibians, fish, echidnas, and platypuses? (No offense intended to any other egg layers that I might have missed.)

[@jjeanniton]

"@memyname1771" raised a question about whether or not chickens are surrogate mothers for all other OVIPAROUS animal species. But you, @FreemanVashier, probably meant to emphasize that only the CHICKEN can produce the protein(s) needed to produce the egg shell of its respective CHICKEN eggs, that only the TURKEY can produce the protein(s) needed to produce the egg shell of its respective TURKEY eggs, and generally, that only the respective oviparous MOTHER of a given shelled egg can produce the protein(s) needed to produce the SHELL of the egg belong to the SAME exact biological SPECIES to which the MOTHER belongs.

[@stephenfisher7114]

I think that the soft eggs of fish eventually became the hard eggs of land animals but stlll clearly an egg .

[@FreemanVashier]

@@stephenfisher7114 It's implied shelled chicken egg. I can't name a single peson that went, Hmmmm frog egg?

[@TVstardom]

I think cellular life existed first and all life on earth developed from it.

[@its-beady-eyes5120]

So glad this one came up while I was eating ramen with eggs. My grandparents used to ask me that question when I was little. I wished they had lived long enough to hear the answer.

[@erichoster9263]

Hello Wonderful Person!

[@ezraclinton6248]

I think a relative of what later branched off to chickens, I’ll just call it a duck for simplicity. Lays a duck egg, and out comes a chicken that later lays a chicken egg. The chicken came first, there would be no chicken egg without the chicken existing first.

[@scottbishop7899]

Obviously the egg came first! .... 🤔 Dinosaurs were laying them before they evolved into chickens!! ..... 😆 🤣 😂

[@xmars8]

so simple minded, Scott. think outside the box. The whole phrase is just a common saying. Go back before the chicken. What came first, the egg laying dinosaur, or the egg?

[@scottbishop7899]

@xmars8 just gutted I got there first? It may not be the right answer but its not a wrong one either 😜 lol

[@stephenfisher7114]

Chickens evolved from dinosaurs, dinosaurs laid eggs , :eggs have been around since dinosaurs were fish. QED

[@seldom_bucket]

I knew this from basic reasoning as a child. Animals were laying eggs before we had chickens.

[@xmars8]

Obviously. You’re getting stuck up on the animal in that phrase. The whole phrase is just a common saying. Go back before the chicken. What came first, the egg laying dinosaur, or the egg?

[@seldom_bucket]

@ yes i obviously know it’s an analogous question dude, I’m just aware that it’s a bad analogy.

[@canuckinsk]

A chicken can only come from a chicken egg. A chicken egg can comes from something else.

[@l0caltea666]

verry simple it was the egg

[@tovelynnhaagensen3491]

The Hen does not need to have a Rooster to fertilize any egg, as she lay egg anyway. And when she hatch -she is allready filled with eggs that mature almost daily. It seems to me that what make the Hen laying eggs, are the Light. Unless enough light, she stop . So to me, it seems like the Hen and Egg came at once :)

[@thaddadeodead]

I think this is a misinterpetation of the question though. I always took it to be asking about chicken eggs which are generally just referred to as eggs. Meaning in evolutionary theory did a proto-chicken not quite qualifying as a chicken happen to lay a chicken egg not quite like its normal eggs, or did a proto-chicken egg happen to hatch a chicken. This is still a major problem with Darwinian evolution as far as I'm aware. I don't know of any known crossover from one species to another and the delineation thereof. All I'm aware of is force adaptation causing species to re-enable dormant abilities that were already existing. Although there might be some newer papers about the minimized bacteria that I'm not aware of showing it developing new genes.

[@dmacrolens]

Thanks for doing something other than cumming in your own mouth, like so many others who have left comments. I really appreciate that!

[@geneticjen9312]

The problem is the entire concept of species is just a convenience for us humans. Taxonomy is a convenience. The question as you pose it just doesn't really matter. It depends on how you define a chicken and that's just a subjective human decision. Evolution is fluid, dynamic, ever changing Apologies if I've misunderstood your final point but do you mean you haven't seen evidence of new genes being created?

[@Afterlife-Boy]

👆 I've been thinking about the difference between an unanswerable question and an unaskable question reminds me of the Unstoppable Force Question .. it was more wordplay than science or philosophy

[@dwdei8815]

You have to think back to before feathers, you go back to before animal lifeforms began to colonise the land. Call them proto-chickens if you want, but they probably looked more like salamanders. The cycle of parent-egg-offspring was up and running, and that's way before chickens. That comes far later in the specialisation and adaptation of animals. It's not a problem with Darwinian Evolution, it is what the theory explains.

[@dougaltolan3017]

Eggs are defined by what laid it, not what is inside it.

[@jeffl4810]

Easy answer, considering evolution. Some birds, not chickens, but descendants made an egg. There was a mutation/mixing of genes that created the first chicken. Which then hatched. The real question: was a male and female chicken needed to make more chickens?

[@cameronlove1093]

I never understood why people thought this was a hard question to answer. The egg had to have come first. A bird that was not quite a chicken laid a bunch of eggs, and at least one of those eggs mutated and out popped a chicken. It’s not like an already hatched bird suddenly morphed into a chicken to lay the first chicken egg.

[@SeenD]

The egg parts (shell, white, yoke) of the egg are of the mother 99% chicken and contain the dna of the mother 99% chicken. The embryo inside the egg is 100% chicken. Therefore the chicken embryo was first. Is that the egg or the chicken? I'm not sure. I'd argue the chicken was first. Because the egg isn't the chicken, only the embryo is the chicken.

[@Amit-sp4qm]

​@@SeenDthis needs to be a top comment ..

[@transmathematica]

The question, “which came first, the chicken or the egg” was asked in pre-Christian times, long before Darwin explained evolution. Before Darwin it was a hard question, after Darwin it is an easy one.

[@WTFiamabanana]

That’s not really how evolution works. The truth is that there is no answer, because there’s no set time you can point to at which a chicken popped into existence. Evolution is slow and piecemeal.

[@joeyc1725]

​@@SeenD it's like a forever loop. Chicken definitely came first

[@danilocastillo7326]

Finally an answer. Not based on assumptions, but based on possibilities. Got it.

[@sabinrawr]

The first egg (of a chicken) was laid by an animal that wasn't a chicken.

[@JZsBFF]

Nobody never said anything about the egg having to be a chicken egg. It's evolution.

[@Freddisred]

Whatever laid the egg wasn't a chicken but its spawn mutated into one.

[@TheSilverSphincter69]

EVERYBODY KNOWS THAT THE ROOSTER CAME FIRST

[@ValidatingUsername]

The proto parents conceived the chicken egg that hatched a chicken

[@bradhills8970]

😅

[@jasonmorgan661]

Epic

[@John-wm6fg]

Rooster Cogburn ?? In the Comic books and show States Such !!! Nothing Could Get to His Hens !!!

[@LukeJohnson-tw5bo]

Biblically based.

[@Matthewmest]

Never realised it was a genuine question

[@AKSTEVE1111]

Life begins at 2:12

[@Cosmic_Chronicles_]

The first was an organism that was not yet chicken, that layed an egg that has a chicken inside it. So if you dont count the first organism that is not quite chicken yet, then egg was first.

[@sky173]

The egg came first. It's similar to a single cell. Without that first cell, you can't have any other organisms.

[@JayS.-mm3qr]

Now that you mention it, it seems so obvious. Just determine which evolved first. Obviously the egg is more likely to have come first because eggs are seen so often in nature, while chicken is just one species of egg laying creatures. Eggs came first as a reproductive mechanism. Chickens eventually evolved from it.

[@sechernbiw3321]

0:10 For clarification, the so-called chicken or the egg problem in philosophy is usually about how to understand the origin of the universe and of reliable patterns of change and development in general, and isn't actually about chickens or eggs in particular at all. The point of the problem as it appears in the Metaphysics of Aristotle (who doesn't call it by that name or mention chickens or eggs at all) is to ask whether potentiality or actuality in general is metaphysically primary, and thus which one precedes the other in a logical rather than a temporal sense. The sense of potentiality in Aristotle is broader than the sense of potential energy, insofar as the latter can be understood as energy of configuration. Potentiality in Aristotle describes an innate tendency an object or system has towards a specific pattern of change or development (for whatever reason), in the absence of factors that can stop it. So for Aristotle the potential of an acorn is to grow into an oak tree, the potential of a chicken egg is to grow into a chicken, and so on. The question is then what if anything had the potential in it to grow into the universe and if so what that potential was, or else whether the universe could follow the specific pattern of change and development it did without that actualization of change and development being an expression of a correspondent potential which (logically rather than temporally) would have to precede the universe and structure it (in a way comparable to how the pattern expressed in the genes and other necessary components present in a seed or an egg precede the specific pattern of change and development we see reliably arise from the seed or the egg in the absence of factors that can stop it). If the universe is the expression of a logically preceding potential, the question then arises of how that potential could have arisen or why it was one way rather than another. Even if the logically preceding potential of the universe were somehow itself the outcome of some other pattern of pre-existing activity, the question would then be what preceding potential had structured that pre-existing activity, and how the potential or activity at the (logical rather than temporal) origin of the whole process could have originated. The problem is related to questions about how we should best interpret the ontological status of pure mathematical objects, whether as sophisticated generalizations of applied mathematical objects which we merely evolved to use and manipulate cognitively but which are ultimately nothing more than extremely useful fictions, or else as pure objects which are in some way more real or as real as the specific concrete objects they can describe.

[@815TypeSirius]

Cool story but eggs came before chickens and chicken eggs came before chickens.

[@davidarvingumazon5024]

So, chicken or egg, which one? choose your conclusion.

[@wmdkitty]

In order for anything to be Actualized it must first be Potential. So... hey, egg came first, again!

[@catbertsis]

No offense to the author of this comment, but it may as well be AI generated to me… I have no idea what half of these words mean.

[@815TypeSirius]

@@catbertsis a bot would hopefully understand grammar lol

[@Dw4rnold]

wildly fascinating Anton, thank you

[@PaulThronson]

THE EGG! of course

[@kmarasakatla]

Gestation evolved into egg laying when species started gulping large pieces of food without chewing, to safeguard the fetus from excess heat generated from digesting the food. That means chicken existed earlier than the egg. Explained this theory in my article and videos.

[@helenamcginty4920]

The more we look the more we find. Magic.

[@stevensmeagol6066]

love these videos especialy the scary smile at the end Anton you the man

[@waffleshredder6965]

Is Anton Human?🤔These are the questions we need to be asking😂 this man is like a formless cosmic intelligence placed into a vessel named Anton

[@brothermine2292]

Anton misinterpreted the question. It's not asking about eggs in general (which we know predated chickens by millions or billions of years since fish, insects, dinosaurs, etc, were egg-laying species). It's obvious that the question is intended as a paradox, and thus it must be asking about the _chicken egg_ in particular. In other words, the real question is "which came first, the chicken or the chicken egg?" Its answer depends entirely on the definition chosen for "chicken egg." It can reasonably be defined either as (1) an egg laid by a chicken hen, or (2) an egg containing a chicken embryo. So, assuming the parents of the earliest chicken were "proto-chickens" (not chickens, but genetically similar to chickens) this assumption leads to an answer only after one of the two definitions is chosen... and the choice of definition is arbitrary because both definitions are reasonable.

[@inspirehealthandhope]

Immediately after watching this, it dawned on me. In a very similar way, our planet is like an egg. It nourishes us and supports us throughout our growth cycle. It would only make sense that our planet came first. In a way, to have a structure that formed first in order to support life within like an egg makes sense. I come from the belief that a creator had a say in all that is.

[@DanielC618]

"Hello INF person"? LMFAO.

[@pdz-pk4od]

This is really fun to learn. To be continued until the genetic analysis is possible and done to satisfaction,.

[@jimmyfrench4722]

This is such a copout of the question as anyone asking the q in earnest is just dropping off the 2nd “chicken” from “what came first, the chicken or the chicken egg”. In which case, we’d have to define “chicken egg” as an egg laid by a chicken or an egg containing what will become a chicken. Then, the proto-chicken (predecessor to the chicken) laid the egg that would hatch into the first chicken…thus, if the chicken egg is an egg laid by a chicken, the chicken came first, else, the chicken egg, or just egg, came first.

[@imankhandaker6103]

Every chicken comes from an egg. Not every egg comes from a chicken. QED.

[@99goat99]

Chicken or egg? This question was settled LONG ago. As asked, there have been eggs millions of years before there have been chickens. But if we ask "Which came first, the chicken or the CHICKEN egg?", the answer is the chicken came first. The first true ("modern") chicken was the final step of slow genetic drift and mutation on the evolutionary path to chickens. It grew in an egg laid by a female bird of the PREVIOUS evolutionary step, and thus its mother was not a true chicken. She was 99.9% or more chicken, but not 100% chicken. The embryo that grew inside that egg was grown from the brand new, never-before-extant genetic blueprint for the animal we identify as a "chicken". So that very first chicken came first, before any of its own progeny laid chicken eggs.

[@cannapolis9009]

Chicken or egg has never truly been a question, but it’s fun to pose to those who don’t understand science. As others have noted, of course the egg came first

[@zebedeemadness2672]

You don't have to go that far back, the ancestral bird of a Domestic chicken is the Jungle fowl, all Domestic chickens are Jungle fowl, but not all Jungle fowl are Domestic chickens. So it was hen jungle fowl that laid eggs that gave rise to Domestic chickens, so a Jungle fowl egg had to be laid before a Domestic chicken could be hatched.

[@fraizie6815]

Even if the question was if the chicken egg or the chicken came first, it's still the egg that has the chicken inside due to evolution. It was always a no-brainer to me. The real question that was answered if the egg or the organism laying it came first.

[@eriknelson2559]

The life cycle picture shows that the flagellated cells all cluster on one side of the spherical cluster, suggesting that they are for propelling the whole colony group

[@glennllewellyn7369]

First? They both did…one inside the other.

[@yvonnemiezis5199]

Superinteresting,fascinating video,thanks Anton 🐣👍❤

[@paulblase3955]

It might also be possible, since this is a parasite, that it used to be multicellular but, like viruses, “devolved” back to a single cell, keeping the embryonic stage.

[@catherinehubbard1167]

There has been no chicken vs egg first mystery for a long time. There were eggs long before there were chickens, though what hatched from them were many animals through many millions of years before chickens evolved. Amphibians, reptiles, dinosaurs (which chickens are), and primitive mammals (including some that still exist) lay eggs that are evolutionarily related to chicken egg structure.

[@PziCrow]

This question is misunderstood by many. The proper understanding of the question, comes if you ask the question, by what is meant: What came first, the chicken or the chicken egg.

[@xscarecrowxx]

A parasite that cosplayed itself into an egg?

[@memyname1771]

but, the real question is, "Which came first, the chicken or the chicken egg?" Obviously, there were other types of eggs long before there were chickens! If two birds that were almost chickens mated, and due to a mutation the genetic material in the egg was altered to match what we call a chicken, then it would be the chicken egg that came before the chicken. It is highly unlikely that a bird that is almost chicken would be changed into a chicken after hatching.

[@DrGibs347]

Uhm it should be common knowledge that the egg came first. The mutations that made chickens happened in the egg. Remember the chicken has to be born from an egg.

[@Kingsblade7]

Considering, viviparous Homo Habilis and viviparous Homo Erectus created the first viviparous Homo Sapiens. Logic dictates the same would happen with the chicken, likely two different oviparous (Egg Laying Species) species interbreeding creating the first chicken egg. Even if the other species was viviparous (Birth Giving Species), the chicken would have had to still have been oviparous due to the Anatomically modern chicken itself being oviparous. So the answer has always been, the egg.

[@KaiKoerber]

There are only five living monotreme species: the duck-billed platypus and four species of echidna (also known as spiny anteaters).

[@RoseNZieg]

I still find the idea of complex life being a symbiotic relationship between microorganisms very intriguing.

[@rcranjos]

It looks like plant sexual reproduction, that changes the adult phase to a new step in the reproduction cycle. This one is like the egg itself was the adult form previously. Later, new phases were added after thr blastula, and those phases became the new adult form.

[@clintparsons3989]

“Which came first. The the chicken or the egg?” The question doesn’t specify it was a chicken egg, and eggs evolved before chickens, therefore the egg came before the chicken.

[@ZarHakkar]

It's very true... I am a bizarre organism.

[@sashogs]

Wow this turns a typical saying into a deep mind blowing thought! Thank you so much for covering these research topics for us, makes running in the daily hamster wheel a little easier 😊

[@Leo_ofRedKeep]

If A creates B so B can turn into another A, how can anyone think that B came first? The cell is the chicken, the transitory split is the egg.

[@kiraPh1234k]

This isn't a real question in science. We don't define an organism as a new species from any one individual. You can only define over a population. There's never been any organism in which we would say "this individual marked a new species", including chickens. The question is just malformed.

[@johnd169]

It was never a reasonable question. Chickens are a garden hybrid, so the first one hatched from an egg. If that doesn’t satisfy you, the first jungle fowl evolved from an ancestor, that also hatched from an egg. It was always the egg first.

[@hotepdutch]

I get that it looks similar to the blastula of an egg, but that still doesn't prove that the original form of the Ichthyosporea was indeed the embryos. The question still remains...

[@donsylvester2372]

I remember hearing about this "forest" on the British program QI some years ago. Thanks for this one.

[@RinnzuRosendale]

I will say that if this is convergent evolution, that would suggest that forming multi celular life may not be as huge a leap for life as we hoped.

[@jensphiliphohmann1876]

01:20 _... except for mammals._ No, mammals also produce eggs, they (except of monotremes) just don't lay them.

[@m4r_art]

Unicellular organisms are the first type of lifeform. They had no eggs just strands of molecules that evolved into living cells. That's not the feature of an egg. The abstract notion of it makes it the primal chicken. Eggs came later, much after cellular division. The chicken is always first historically... final answer, forever.

[@andrewadam1890]

Egg first. The chicken was just a mutation from the mother. Like cross breeding two closely related species to produce another species.

[@MarcusGustavWilliams]

Where do I find the link to the research paper?