Which one is first on earth? Egg or hen?

Answer 1

The egg, of course. Eggs existed long before birds (and thus chicken) did.

The first hen was born from an egg. That particular egg was not laid by a hen.


Edit: To elaborate a bit: an egg is not necessarily laid by a hen, but a hen has to have come out of an egg.

At a certain point in time, there is an animal which we would not call a hen. This animal lays an egg. A mutation causes a slight change in the genome, and a hen is borne >>>from that egg<<< hence the egg >>>has to be<<< first.

Answer 2

It has to be the egg, because mutation wouldn't show up in a phenotype until an organism is "born." Theoretically, the animal that laid the first egg was not a hen, but some animal closely related. The hen then hatched out of the egg and began a new species using her mutant genes and putting them into all subsequent progeny.

Answer 3

It's a question that has baffled scientists, academics and pub bores through the ages: What came first, the chicken or the egg?

Now a team made up of a geneticist, philosopher and chicken farmer claim to have found an answer. It was the egg.

Put simply, the reason is down to the fact that genetic material does not change during an animal's life.

Therefore the first bird that evolved into what we would call a chicken, probably in prehistoric times, must have first existed as an embryo inside an egg.

Professor John Brookfield, a specialist in evolutionary genetics at the University of Nottingham, told the UK Press Association the pecking order was clear.

The living organism inside the eggshell would have had the same DNA as the chicken it would develop into, he said.

"Therefore, the first living thing which we could say unequivocally was a member of the species would be this first egg," he added. "So, I would conclude that the egg came first."

The same conclusion was reached by his fellow "eggsperts" Professor David Papineau, of King's College London, and poultry farmer Charles Bourns.

Mr Papineau, an expert in the philosophy of science, agreed that the first chicken came from an egg and that proves there were chicken eggs before chickens.

He told PA people were mistaken if they argued that the mutant egg belonged to the "non-chicken" bird parents.

"I would argue it is a chicken egg if it has a chicken in it," he said.

"If a kangaroo laid an egg from which an ostrich hatched, that would surely be an ostrich egg, not a kangaroo egg."

Bourns, chairman of trade body Great British Chicken, said he was also firmly in the pro-egg camp.

He said: "Eggs were around long before the first chicken arrived. Of course, they may not have been chicken eggs as we see them today, but they were eggs."

Answer 4

The hen must have evolved from some other species. Only after the hen evolved could it lay an egg. So, hen is the answer!

Answer 5

The egg.
According to the evolution of all species by natural selection, a hen was NOT a hen from the start. It was a consequence, or better, a development..
Although, an egg has been an egg since the amoebas evolved to the segment of viviparus creatures, among others.

Answer 6

the hen came first on earth and it did not hatch from an egg

Answer 7

Neither.....chickens developed over millions of years from single celled organisms so there was no "first chicken" or "first hen".

Well, I guess if you REALLY want to be technical, life preceded the ability to procreate initially so the answer would be "hen" (the single celled ancestor of the hen, that is).

Answer 8

The hen of course.

Answer 9

I would say the egg. The egg is more primitive than a hen. So, in evolutionary terms, I say the egg.

Answer 10

hen because it evolved from someother spice, and then the hen layed an egg.