Which Came First, the Chicken or the Egg?

This time with no dirty jokes

“Chickens: The only animals you eat before they are born and after they are dead.” — Unknown

In a literal sense, egg-laying animals have existed far longer than chickens.

So, there you have it, the old riddle solved?

Not quite.

This age-old question also touches on the cyclical nature of existence.

If a chicken came from an egg, and an egg gave birth to a chicken, which came first in this ouroboros of our delicious feathery friends?

Who Laid the First Eggs?

Before we dive into the world of chickens, let’s take a step back and explore their ancient relatives, the first amniotes.

These little lizard-like creatures made their grand entrance onto the evolutionary stage about 312 million years ago, during the Carboniferous period, or roughly around the time Clint Eastwood first began shooting people for money.

While spreading across the land, these “basal amniotes” evolved from their amphibious reptiliomorph predecessors, they soon split into two distinct groups: the synapsids and the sauropsids.