What came first, the chicken or the egg? What came first, the egg or the chicken? We answer ...

What came first, the egg or the chicken? We answer … February 6th, 2013

There is still a debate about which came first, the chicken or the egg. Scientists, philosophers and ordinary people have pondered this question for a long time. It's a riddle: a vicious circle, because if first came the egg from which it later hatched hen, it must have been a chicken, which took down primordial egg- Well, I think it's understandable; We will not go in circles to infinity, but we will go further.

But it turned out that dinosaurs laid bird-like eggs long before chickens appeared on Earth. A rare fossilized dinosaur nest helps answer the mystery of which came first, the chicken or the egg, two paleontologists say.

A small carnivorous dinosaur sat over its nest of eggs 77 million years ago on a sandy river beach. When the water level rose, the dinosaur ran away and its babies did not hatch.
Researchers are now studying the fossil nest and at least five individual eggs. The nest is a pile of sand about 1.6 feet (half a meter) wide and weighs as much as a small person, about 110 pounds (50 kg).

“Some characteristics of the nest are the same as those of birds, and analysis can show how ancient in time such evolved characteristics as incubation, nest building, and pointed eggs are partial answers to the old question of which came first, the hen or egg,” said researcher Francoys Therrien, head of dinosaur paleoecology at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Alberta, Canada.

Answer?
It's still unclear whether chicken eggs or chicken eggs came first (the question asked in the original riddle), said Darla Zelenitsky, a paleontologist at the University of Calgary in Alberta who was the first scientist to carefully study a dinosaur nest.
But with a literal interpretation, the answer to the riddle is obvious. Dinosaurs built bird-like nests and laid bird-like eggs long before birds (including chickens) evolved from dinosaurs.

« The egg came before the chicken« Zelenitsky said. "Chickens evolved much later than the carnivorous dinosaurs that lay these eggs."

Now the original riddle can be rephrased: What came first, the dinosaur or the egg? Meanwhile, the new nest provides some of the strongest evidence in North America for the emergence of the bird-like egg before the hen.

The petrified nest was found in the 1990s and was kept at Canada Fossils Limited in Calgary, Alberta. There, Zelenitsky first discovered remains that were first labeled as belonging to a herbivorous duck-nosed dinosaur. (In 2007, the fossil was acquired by the Royal Tyrrel Museum of Palaeontology in Alberta.)

Zelenitsky realized that the nest and eggs actually belonged to a small theropod, a carnivorous dinosaur. In particular, the dinosaur that laid its eggs was most likely a maniraptoran, a group of theropods that paleontologists believe gave rise to birds 150 million years ago during the Jurassic.

"Nests of small theropods are rare in North America, and in the past, only Troodon dinosaur nests have been found," Zelenitsky said. “Based on the characteristics of the eggs and the nest, we know that the nest belonged to a caenagnathid [of the maniraptoran family] or a small raptor, both of which are small, carnivorous dinosaurs closely related to birds.”

Anyway, this is the first found nest of these small dinosaurs.

Only one other maniraptoran nest found in North America was Troodon formosus.

The nature of oviposition
The nest analysis, detailed in the latest issue of the journal Paleontology, provides paleontologists with information about oviposition by this particular dinosaur and others, along with the evolution of different oviposition patterns, Therrien said.

"Our study provides a lot of information about the dinosaur that laid the eggs and how it built its nest," he said.

For example, the position and spacing of the eggs suggests that the original nest contained at least 12 eggs arranged in a ring around the flat top of a pile on which theropods would sit to incubate their eggs. The eggs were approximately 5 inches (12 cm) tall and, like bird eggs, were pointed at one end.

The study also shows that the dinosaur laid two eggs at a time on the sloping sides of the pile. This is not like crocodiles laying all their eggs at once, and more like birds laying one egg at a time. (Ancestors of crocodiles gave rise to dinosaurs and later birds.)

A special discussion was also created on this sore point, in which genetic scientist John Brookfield, a specialist from the University of Nottingham, an expert in philosophy, David Papineau, University College London, and Charles Bournes, the owner of a poultry farm, took part.

All three agreed that the egg came first .

“During the life of an animal, the genetic material remains unchanged. Therefore, the first bird that gradually evolved into what is the modern chicken (apparently this was back in prehistoric times) first existed as an embryo inside an egg.”

John Brookfield

The embryo in an egg has the same DNA as the chick that will hatch from that egg. Of all that has been said above in terms of evolution the egg should appear first.

Two other experts fully agreed with the conclusions of the geneticist, and the philosopher's answer was simple and concise:

"The first chick came from an egg, therefore, the egg came before the chick»

David Papineau

However, do you think it's that simple? And here it is not...

The scientific team of the universities of Sheffield and Warwick (Great Britain) gave an answer to the question that for centuries baffled the most brilliant minds of mankind: what came first - the chicken or the egg.

The chicken came first, scientists say.

Relevant studies were carried out with the help of a powerful computer, which simulated the process of the appearance of a chicken egg at the genetic level. At the same time, scientists found that the protein ovocledinin-17 or OS-17 plays a key role in its formation. He is involved in the creation of the eggshell.

Without this protein, which is in the body of a chicken, an egg cannot appear.

“This protein has been known for a long time, but only now we have established that it is directly related to the formation of the egg and controls this process,” said one of the leaders of the work, Professor Colin Freeman. “It should be noted that different types of birds have different variants of this protein, although they perform similar functions. Thus, chickens have a unique form of OS-17, without which the well-known chicken egg cannot be born,” he said. As a result, British scientists were able to answer a scientific question that was considered insoluble by establishing that the chicken appeared first, and only then the egg.

This conclusion is also consistent with the results of modern genetic studies, showing that the domestic chicken is the result of hybridization of the bank rooster and the gray jungle hen, and, therefore, a clear line is the moment of obtaining the first female hybrid.

The original article is on the website InfoGlaz.rf Link to the article from which this copy is made -

Hello! I am a huge fan of your site and science as such, but I wonder why the famous question - which came first, the chicken or the egg - is not on the list of children's questions so far? I am sure that few parents will be able to easily give a clear answer. I look forward to your answer with great impatience.

Oddly enough, this famous question can be answered unequivocally - the egg appeared earlier. Only this egg was not chicken at all. Or maybe not quite chicken.

But first, to make the answer clearer, you need to understand what a chicken is and what a chicken egg is. It would seem, what is there to explain? Everyone already knows this: mom buys eggs in the store, and all the children saw the chicken in the picture or in the zoo (and some of them in the wild, in the village). However, in reality, things are often not at all like what they appear to be when you just look at them.

You have to be especially careful with eggs. You look at it - it seems to be chicken ... And suddenly - bang! And a crocodile hatches from it (Fig. 2). This can lead to dangerous confusion, as in Bulgakov's story "Fatal Eggs" (for me, this is a novel according to all the main diagnostic features, but here literary critics know better).

And all because all eggs are more or less similar. Not necessarily outwardly: in appearance, you can confuse a chicken egg with a crocodile one, but, of course, no one will confuse a frog or fish egg with a chicken egg. But in fact it is the same thing - fertilized eggs.

Egg cells are similar in principle to ordinary cells. They also have a nucleus, cytoplasm and an outer membrane. On top of it there is almost always a thin shell of proteins. But a chicken egg is much larger than an ordinary egg and is more complex. The diameter of an ordinary cell is one hundredth or one fiftieth of a millimeter. The diameter of a human egg is about one-twentieth of a millimeter. The egg of a frog - an egg - without a shell has a diameter of about one millimeter. The ovum of a chicken is the yolk of an egg. The nucleus is not visible in it, because it is small and transparent. And everything else, protein and shell, are complex shells (Fig. 3). With them, the chicken dresses her egg to protect the future chicken from drying out, pathogenic bacteria and other adversities.

It seems that some people still think that the yolk is the nucleus of the egg, the protein is the cytoplasm, and the shell is the shell. I once, about fifteen years ago, witnessed how a biology teacher explained this in a lesson. In this case, the teacher was wrong! (It’s even partly clear where the wind blows from: geologists and geographers abuse the comparison of an egg with the Earth: the yolk is the core, the protein is the mantle, and the shell is the earth’s crust.)

As in the nucleus of any cell, the nucleus of the egg contains hereditary information. It is written on special very long molecules (they are called DNA). What is hereditary information, in the first approximation, can be explained even to someone who knows nothing about molecules. This is information about how to make a chicken or a person out of an egg. The information is written in letters in one line. The length of this record for a chicken is about two and a half billion letters. There are only four different letters in all organisms. And they make up words of only three letters. Phrases are composed of such words (they are called genes). The phrases are quite long. They can have a hundred words, and a thousand. Each phrase, if the cell reads it, turns into a protein - a complex molecule-machine.

It is proteins that contract our muscles, carry oxygen from the lungs, strengthen bones and cartilage, and make all sorts of other substances for us. And the color of our hair and eyes, the shape of the nose and ears, and in many ways even character traits and intelligence depend on the composition of proteins. And in general, all our signs, including species differences between chicken, crocodile and man.

In a chicken or a human, the body is made up of hundreds of billions of cells, all of which come from an egg. Moreover, chicken cells are very similar to human ones. Looking at a chicken and a person, it’s not easy to guess this! And in the nucleus of each cell in a chicken and a person there is information about the whole organism.

It seems that one hundred billion cells is a lot. But in fact, the egg and its descendants can divide quickly - say, once an hour. Then in ten hours there will be about 1000 cells (2×2×2×2×2×2×2×2×2×2 = 1024). Twenty hours later, a million. In thirty - a billion. Another 5–6 hours - and the desired number has been reached! So the cells especially can not be in a hurry. After all, in fact, a chicken develops in 21 days.

True, if you take one chicken cell with a nucleus and plant it in a nutrient medium, then you won’t get a whole chicken in this way (although this number works with plants). Usually, animal cells remember “who they worked for” in the whole organism (see How do cells understand that some should become hair, others bones, third brains, etc.? And from which center are they given commands?) and retain their properties during reproduction outside the body. To get a whole animal from an ordinary cell, you need to extract the nucleus from it and place it inside the egg (and remove or destroy the nucleus of the egg). Then you can get the whole organism.

They do not do this with chickens and crocodiles - their eggs are difficult to work with. But with frogs, mice and many other mammals have already learned.

This means that in the cytoplasm of the egg there are some important substances that help to read hereditary information in such a way as to get a whole organism. Also, the two copies of information in the eggs are not exactly normal. One copy in the form of a set of 39 chromosomes, that is, of 39 DNA molecules, is from a chicken. The second copy (also in the form of a set of 39 chromosomes) is given by a rooster. The rooster sperm fuses with the egg while it does not yet have a shell. Then the chicken dresses the egg with additional shells, lays the egg and begins to incubate it. The nucleus of the egg doubles all 78 chromosomes, and 78 chromosomes fall into each daughter cell.

Almost all animals and plants have eggs. But what about other organisms - unicellular? Single-celled organisms, such as amoeba, look very different from humans and chickens. But the method of recording information and cell division is almost the same for them. Information about the structure of the amoeba cell is contained in a single nucleus. During reproduction, the nucleus first divides, and then the cell, and two new amoeba are obtained. Amoeba don't have eggs or sperm.

But many single-celled organisms also have eggs. These "eggs" do not look very similar to chicken ones. And they behave differently. After merging with the sperm, they quickly divide several times, and then the resulting cells scatter about their business. This is how, for example, the eggs of the unicellular green alga Chlamydomonas behave (Fig. 4).

Once upon a time, only single-celled organisms lived on Earth. This means that multicellular animals originated from some of them. Scientists do not know exactly where and when the unicellular organisms that became our ancestors lived. They probably lived in the shallow waters of the seas, and the estimated dates are from about a billion to 700 million years ago. But surprisingly, some of the genes in their eggs were already almost exactly the same as those of a chicken. This is known for certain, because such genes are generally almost the same in all organisms from cells with a nucleus. (Think about what such genes might be responsible for.) So "proto-proto-chicken" eggs existed a billion years before chickens.

And then, in some of our distant ancestor, the cells with flagella, which are formed during the division of the egg, ceased to scatter. They remained glued. We can say that it was the first "chicken" - the future animal. What supposedly happened next - willing parents can read here in this scientific article. Gradually, genes changed in such eggs - some were lost, some doubled, some new ones appeared (how this happens, we will analyze another time). Creatures came out of such eggs, more and more like chickens. From the eggs (caviar) fish began to emerge. Then, about 400 million years ago, some fish learned to breathe air and walk along the bottom on short legs. A little later, some of them began to crawl out onto land. Gradually, they turned into amphibians, similar to newts. They laid their eggs (eggs) in the water for a very long time. Finally the reptiles appeared. They "learned" to dress eggs with shells and lay them on land (they also include crocodiles - by the way, the closest relatives of birds from among modern reptiles).

Reptiles have legs so arranged that it is difficult for them to run for a long time. And to be able to run fast and for a long time is, of course, very useful. And there were such reptiles that "learned" to do this. But for this they had to stand on their hind legs. This is how dinosaurs appeared.

The birds were already very close. All dinosaurs laid eggs, and some incubated them. Some of the dinosaurs, apparently, were very smart in general, they could take care of and raise their “chickens”. They were almost as smart as chickens (and chickens, contrary to popular belief, are very smart and cunning birds). And finally, in some of these dinosaurs, the genes changed slightly, and the scales on their bodies gradually turned into feathers. And the dinosaurs themselves (more precisely, some of them) did not die out at all - they turned into birds.

Thus, the first real animal egg appeared, probably more than 700 million years ago, and maybe more than a billion. The first dinosaur eggs, already very similar to chickens, appeared about 225 million years ago. And the first chickens - more or less close relatives of modern chickens - appeared only 90 million years ago. That's how much older the egg is! And the fact that the first eggs were not chicken - so the question does not ask about this ...

Good afternoon, dear bird lovers. Scientists have learned what came first - an egg or? How many disputes and debates existed around this topic, but until our time no one could reasonably answer the question: what came first - an egg or a chicken.

Evolutionary scientists put forward various versions of the answers to the eternal question, but no one could find an evidence base for their statements, so the search for an answer became a matter of principle.

Despite the fact that the question of the appearance of an egg and a chicken is considered more philosophical than scientific, scientists have been very closely engaged in its study. But, they had to suffer for a long time in the search processes.

The evolutionists grabbed different leads, but each of them led them to the same place from which they started. The problem is that the mechanisms of evolution have not been studied, and no one today can reasonably say how exactly the genetic changes occurred that gave rise to such a variety of species in the world of animals and birds.

Evolutionists argued that the egg certainly predates the chicken, and genetic mutations occurred precisely in the embryonic form. According to them, the chicken egg appeared earlier, possibly from other forms of living creatures, and under certain conditions, the cells of the embryo underwent a mutation.

Scientists in this field argue that mutations occurred over many generations until they stopped. But, under this theory, they could not find a powerful, irrefutable evidence base.

The whole problem is that all evolutionary mechanisms are just a theory. Its mechanisms have not been studied, and modern scientists are increasingly inclined to believe that it is erroneous.

According to the doctrine of evolution, the egg is an embryonic form, and it is from it that all existing and extinct species originated. But, again, the evolutionist version is easily refuted by a simple argument.

To obtain an embryonic form, parental cells are needed, the fusion of which makes it possible for a new life to appear. For this reason, it is impossible to say that the appearance of the egg occurred before the appearance of the chicken.

But still, which came first: the egg or the chicken?

The evolutionists suffered, tried, but did not answer anything. But, science does not stand still. Modern technical capabilities have allowed British researchers to get more information about eggs and chickens.

Through the use of high-tech computers, British scientists were able to study in detail the composition of a chicken egg at the cellular level, as well as trace. Through their research, they discovered a previously unknown type of protein found in chicken cells.

This is a component called Ovocleidin-17. The fact is that this type of protein can only be generated by the laying ovaries; it cannot be obtained artificially under other conditions. All other components of eggs are contained in other living organisms, in food, plants and even in the soil.

Everything except this particular protein, which is produced by the body of only one species of living creatures on the planet - chickens.

It was this discovery that made it possible for scientists to answer the eternal question that tormented thinkers and philosophers of different times and peoples. Based on the study, scientists argue that the egg could not have appeared before the chicken, since without the Ovocleidin-17 component, its formation is impossible.

The discovery made by British scientists aroused interest not only among scientists. The Christian world took it as yet another proof of the divine origin of the world described in the Bible.

Which came first, the egg or the chicken?

Good luck and success to everyone!

In the comments you can add your photos of laying hens,

Question egg or chicken championship standing since ancient Greece.

Great philosophers, in particular Aristotle, believed that there can be no primacy here, the process of the appearance of both chicken and egg can only be simultaneous, otherwise the whole essence of the origin of life or its creation by the Almighty will be reduced to absurdity.

The point of view of modern philosophers on this issue looks completely different: the first chicken did not come from the egg of a CHICKEN, which as a species did not yet exist, but from the egg of some other, close to the chicken of the previous species.From this hatched chicken, a new species began - the domestic chicken. Such evolutionary transformations are possible only in germ cells, from which offspring is born. The process can take several million years. So the philosophers say that the first was the egg.

British scientist John Brookfield also proved in 2006, using new discoveries in the field of genetics, what was the first egg.

And now, quite recently, it seems that this dilemma, about the primacy of the egg or the chicken, has received a new logical conclusion. Causal relationship established scientifically and experimentally: again, British scientists, through experimental research, swapped the chicken and egg.

After all, for the appearance of offspring, there must be a parent. in the bible it's been said for a long time, and finally science managed to experimentally confirm this fact. Careful computer studies of chicken eggs have shown that the formation of the shell comes from those substances that the bird receives with food. And only chicken protein is formed inside the chicken itself, i.e. is produced by herself using the protein Ovocleidin-17, which is found in her ovaries. So only a chicken could lay a chicken egg, from which a chicken could later appear. There can't be an egg without a chicken! First the chicken, then the egg!

So the philosophical question of the primacy of the chicken or the egg has now been decided in favor of the mother chicken. However, I personally believe that although all this is scientific confirmation, it is quite possible that soon we will hear about new discoveries that will refute what has been stated here, as has happened more than once. How to know?

After all, the appearance of the first chicken, and other birds, like everything that surrounds us around from the moment the entire Universe was born, as well as everything that was before this moment, is one of those many mysteries of the world that makes a person think, explore and try to understand the point.

Sometimes it seems to me that a person is just to understand HOW IT HAPPENED...

The story of the creator.

The first to think about this problem was our Lord Almighty. Where should he start? From the chicken or from the egg? If you start with an egg, then you need to create two of them at once: one with a female and the other with a male. However, there is a small hitch: who will hatch them? Apostle Paul? Then chickens to feed, raise and protect? All this should be done by the chicken. Therefore, it is logical to start with it. However! Can a chicken, alone, conceive an egg? No, he can not. She's not a sexless amoeba. For this she needs a rooster. Without a rooster, the cycle of eggs in nature does not occur. So that's where you need to start.

The Lord took clay, molded a rooster and breathed life into it. Then I pulled the biggest feather out of his ass and made a chicken out of the feather. The creator looked at this pair and thought: “It turned out well! Darwin never dreamed of such a thing.” Then he teleported a new animal species to Earth and with the words: “Go, carry eggs and multiply,” he released them on all four sides.

And so it went from those ancient, prehistoric times - a rooster tramples a chicken, a chicken lays eggs, and only then the next chicken generation appears from these eggs.

cosmological hypothesis.

Scientists on the unknown claim that the first was an egg. And it was brought to Earth from space. Either aliens did it on purpose, or it happened through the most common panspermia, or there was an intersection with one of the parallel worlds. In the course of its wanderings through the Galaxy, the Earth fell into a grandiose cosmic cloud of eggs. As a result, the eggs settled like a hail on all the bodies of the solar system. But since suitable conditions for their reproduction were available only on Earth, it was precisely its cosmic eggs that were colonized. It is possible that we will also find eggshells on the Moon, Mars and even on asteroids.

This theory is beautiful and tempting, however, it does not answer another important question - where did the eggs come from in space itself ?! After all, it is clear even to the most ignorant that chickens cannot live in outer space. And even more so, rush. Therefore, this theory needs further development. Although especially advanced mystics and esotericists claim that the eggs were formed during the Big Bang itself.

Historical interpretation.

It is known that birds (and a chicken is also a bird, although some ignoramuses deny this) are distant relatives of dinosaurs. That is, they did not appear on Earth by themselves, but descended from these ancient monsters. And if so, then everything immediately falls into place. Since dinosaurs also reproduced by eggs, the female dinosaur could not lay down a chicken. “And the dinosaur laid a testicle. Yes, not simple, but with chicken inside! Why chicken and not chicken eggs? Well, any fool knows that eggs don't hatch from eggs.

So the egg comes first and the chicken comes second.

Someone will probably object that, they say, replacing a chicken egg with any other is not a solution to this problem. However! After all, the condition of the problem does not detail whose egg it was! Maybe it was all wood! It hung quietly on a tree, and suddenly a mutation attacked it. And mutations, they are ubiquitous and voracious! From one mutation, a chicken hatched from an egg, from another - an ostrich, from a third - a peacock. What is the change?

Therefore, the dinosaur appeared first, then the egg, then the chicken from the egg, and at the very end, at the present stage, fools appeared who created a problem out of this.

However, let's finish the skeptics to the end! We can easily refute this argument. So which came first, the egg or the dinosaur?

Let's say the egg comes first. But how and where did it come from here on Earth? (See the Creator Theory and the Cosmological Hypothesis above) Let's say that the unthinkable happened and the insides of the egg (yolks/whites and other genes) were formed by sticking together in the primordial broth. Then they got out on land, began to chew grass, move on wheels and extract calcium for the shell by chemosynthesis. But how did they come up with the ridiculous idea to take the shape of an egg and turn a calcium shell on a lathe, without windows, without doors and without limbs!? There is nothing to move around on, there is nothing to spoil either. In addition, every cross-counter can roll an egg back and forth with impunity as much as he wants! At least two halves in a row. This is a dead end evolutionary move. On the contrary, all creatures for protection from enemies are overgrown with spikes, thorns, horns, in extreme cases, tortoiseshell, and also wool to keep warm.

Don't brainstorm for too long. In fact, everything is simple here: the egg has such ideal, smooth mathematical shapes, texture and size only in order to fall out of the dinosaur's ovipositor without obstacles and damage. where it was formed.

So, the dinosaur is primary, and the egg is secondary. Q.E.D. 😎

Philosophical interpretation.

If we assume that the egg was the first, then it is logical to be puzzled by the question: could this egg decide to give birth to a chicken? Decide on your own, with your brains? No, it couldn't. The egg does not have free will. And where does this will come from if the egg has no brains. The fact that he has a program / genetic code instead of brains does not fundamentally change anything. This code also has no will. How can the film itself, for no apparent reason, decide that it needs to start spinning a movie? Here right now!

In addition, this DNA program does not have any mechanisms to find the shell, roll it out to a warm place, and then climb inside it. In two weeks, hatch, defeat all enemies and work up the sides to the size of a chicken.

Could the chicken decide to lay an egg? The chicken could. Because the chicken has a brain and free will. Compared to an egg, of course.

Therefore, initially chickens did not carry eggs, but multiplied in some other way. And then one day the chicken came up with a brilliant idea. “But can I imagine myself as an egg? I can! But if I were an egg, could I imagine myself a chicken? No, it could not, because the egg has no mind and imagination. Therefore, if I can imagine myself as an egg, then I think. And if I think, then I exist. And if I exist, then I can lay an egg. And since I can lay an egg, so I will lay it!”

Everything. The process has begun! The chicken is the cause, the egg is the effect. This is how the steep zigzag of evolution happened - the chicken teaches the eggs, not the eggs the chicken.

Logical analysis.

If we ask ourselves which came first, the chicken or the egg, we postulate that:
1. chicken and egg are different objects.
2. Up to a certain point in the past, there was no chicken or egg.
3. The chicken and the egg did not appear at the same time.

It follows from the analysis of these initial conditions that it is not explicitly specified that one of the indicated objects originated from the other. That one of the two of them was the root cause, and someone became the effect. Therefore, the chicken could well come from one source, and the egg from a completely different one. Simultaneously or with a gap of billions of years. And even in opposite ends of the universe. (By the way, the great Aristotle believed that the chicken and the egg appeared at the same time) The causal relationship between the chicken and the egg is not set. And the fact that they appeared “not at the same time” does not at all exclude the possibility that this difference in time tends to zero or to infinity. Moreover, it is not determined whether there was a period of time in which these two objects existed simultaneously!

But the most important incident is different. The condition completely ignores the fact that chickens reproduce sexually! And without taking into account the role of the rooster, it is completely pointless to talk about the genesis of the chicken and the egg! By the way, cases have long been known when a rooster remained without chickens for a long time. And from longing, after a while, he somehow began to lay eggs himself! Therefore, it is absolutely not excluded that the rooster was the first. Then he laid a number of eggs, one of which hatched a chicken.

Thus, taking into account the above, an unambiguous conclusion follows: the task, as an attempt to create a logical paradox, is formulated incorrectly, which is why it is completely meaningless.

And although “everyone understands” that a chicken comes from an egg, and an egg from a chicken, however, from the point of view of formal logic, this fact should be adequately reflected in the initial conditions. The decision comes only from what is reflected in the conditions, and not from what “everyone understands”.

And now, if we try to formulate the problem taking into account the above remarks, then it will cease to exist. Here is the unexpected, at first glance, result.

Real, everyday, worldly interpretation.

There are two options.
1. If you are puzzled by this question, then you obviously have something wrong with your head.
2. If you were asked this question, it means that you are already tired of everyone with your stupid chatter, and it's time for you to shut up. Like, why are you being clever here, Buridan's donkey? If you are so smart, show yourself in the classics of the genre!

This interpretation is the most exhaustive, and you can throw everything said above out of your head, tea, it is not a trash can.

How it really was.

The first animals to come out of the ocean onto land were amphibians. They reproduce by laying eggs in water. Zoologists believe that caviar is also eggs, only without a hard shell. Amphibian eggs, like fish eggs, do not have a waterproof shell. Therefore, they cannot move far from the water, because on land their eggs dry out quickly. Amphibians gave rise to other animal species. Some of them (including birds) have acquired a double egg shell. The outer is a shell, consisting mainly of calcium carbonate, which provides rigidity. And under the shell - two soft shells that protect from drying out.

The first amphibians appeared 360 million years ago,
and the first birds - 150. Calculate how long it took to create the shell.

Total!

The "chicken or egg" paradox does not exist in nature. And it was invented purely in order to powder our brains.