There will be an exact egg that contains the first chicken (defined as an animal that can fuck other chickens and produce offspring IIRC), that came before the first chicken because the chicken was in the egg.
Not really there is a well defined line that defines what is/isn’t a chicken, that’s really the only thing needed for this question.
The issue is the term proto-chicken isn’t well defined.
But for it to be considered a different species it would have to not be able to reproduce with a modern chicken (which doesn’t mean it can’t reproduce with early chickens).
MrSmoothPP@lemmy.zip 2 days ago
At that point the genetic difference would be too small to not call that bird some sort of chicken.
BarHocker@discuss.tchncs.de 2 days ago
Then go one generation further back until the laying bird statisfies your “not chicken” criteria.
RIotingPacifist@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Nope.
There will be an exact egg that contains the first chicken (defined as an animal that can fuck other chickens and produce offspring IIRC), that came before the first chicken because the chicken was in the egg.
MrSmoothPP@lemmy.zip 2 days ago
I’m no biologist, but I’m pretty sure this ignores how fluid the evolution is from regular bird to proto-chicken to chicken.
howrar@lemmy.ca 11 hours ago
By the well ordering theorem, no matter what you choose as your definition of “chicken”, there must be a first.
RIotingPacifist@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Not really there is a well defined line that defines what is/isn’t a chicken, that’s really the only thing needed for this question.
The issue is the term proto-chicken isn’t well defined.
But for it to be considered a different species it would have to not be able to reproduce with a modern chicken (which doesn’t mean it can’t reproduce with early chickens).