Well now that you mention it.
Comment on Was there ever a solid or scientific answers to which came first chicken or the egg?
AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world 4 days ago
The egg is the same organism as the individual that hatches out of it.
It’s like saying “which came first, the child or the adult”?
Patnou@lemmy.world 3 days ago
over_clox@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Donkeys and horses don’t even have the same number of chromosomes.
But they can breed, which creates a mule (which is usually infertile, but not always).
Just because animals breed doesn’t make the offspring the same species.
TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Species is a construct and falls apart very quickly outside of the common barnyard and kidsbook animals. It can be a useful construct for understanding some things, but its not a “thing” that inherently exists in biology.
We can impose an idea on organisms, but they have no obligation to follow it.
AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world 4 days ago
No, but the fallacy is in thinking the new species appears when the egg hatches, rather than when it’s fertilized. The egg is already the new offspring.
over_clox@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Okay, let’s back it up a bit…
Unfertilized eggs do not create offspring. They either create menstrual blood/waste, or breakfast food, depending on the type of creature, mammal or non-mammal.
AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Every egg that hatches was previously fertilized (at least for sexually-reproducing organisms). The animal that hatches from the fertilized egg became a genetically distinct organism when its egg was fertilized, not when the egg was hatched or laid.
In the case of chickens, eggs are fertilized before being laid; when we talk about “unfertilized eggs”, we usually mean eggs that were not fertilized before being laid. Such eggs were not part of the discussion until you introduced them.
over_clox@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I ate two fried unfertilized eggs just a few hours ago.
Unfertilized eggs literally never create offspring.
Maybe take a sex-ed class?
AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world 3 days ago
What’s your point? Unfertilized eggs don’t hatch, so they’re not part of the scenario in question.