Which came first, the chicken or the egg? There's an answer

[W_L]

This news was fun fluff, it's a long shot anomaly that a chicken could be born without an egg.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/17769677

 

So it is possible for a chicken to be born without an egg (shell, ), the only problem now is that the mother probably should have had a Caesarian C-Section before the chick killed her in a style reminiscent of "Aliens".

 

What's next Parthenogenesis?

[Andy78]

Wow!! Vivipority in birds?!

 

It's not just one Sri Lankan vet who has never seen this before, nobody has ever seen this before. All birds everywhere are oviporous.

 

**wonders if this is a late April Fool**

[Audi]

Died of internal wounds

[W_L]

Died of internal wounds

 

As I said like Aliens, except the chick didn't burst out suddenly from the mother's chest.

 

Chickens and birds usually don't internally hold their offspring towards their full term, it's such a rare issue and it also reveals that the Chicken and Egg analogy might hold more possibilities.

 

In terms of evolution, it could also be the first case of a natural mutation for oviparity based life to become viviparity, in other words creatures that usually lay eggs in nest beginning to hold their offspring internally. Maybe, it's these 1 in a billion rare cases that kept happening over history that modern mammals and reptiles began to do similar things.

 

I hope andy and me are not the only ones excited about this. It makes a huge deal of sense in terms of how modern species developed into their current forms and opens up a large deal of scientific potential.

[Fishwings]

Hrmmm

As I said like Aliens, except the chick didn't burst out suddenly from the mother's chest.

 

Chickens and birds usually don't internally hold their offspring towards their full term, it's such a rare issue and it also reveals that the Chicken and Egg analogy might hold more possibilities.

 

In terms of evolution, it could also be the first case of a natural mutation for oviparity based life to become viviparity, in other words creatures that usually lay eggs in nest beginning to hold their offspring internally. Maybe, it's these 1 in a billion rare cases that kept happening over history that modern mammals and reptiles began to do similar things.

 

I hope andy and me are not the only ones excited about this. It makes a huge deal of sense in terms of how modern species developed into their current forms and opens up a large deal of scientific potential.

 

 

Really? I don't think this is indicative of something that could fuel evolution. I mean in order for the mother's genes to be passed onto the next generation, she would have to have to have a reproductive output higher than other hens. Having died while giving birth would be something that natural selection would favour against, if this case was even genetically related : 0

[W_L]

If this was genetic, it would be breath taking

 

Sure several generations of chicken will die horribly, let's be honest in a cruel twist of nature. However, if adaptation does take hold eventually the offspring will eventually be able to reproduced by internal gestation rather incubation. The Mother hen will start developing stronger internal systems over time in the span of thousand years.

 

However, I doubt the chick will be released back into the population to spread the new/mutated gene if it is a genetic interest, but imagine if the chick had been reintroduced and had a child either through egg or internally, remember this internal birth is a rare occurrence our of many normal egg productions. The offspring will continue to carry this mutation into its offspring with growing possibility of these new kinds of chicken.

 

Natural selection favors traits by trial and error, a mutation is only the beginning, not the end of evolution. It does not need to be self-sustaining at first to be reasonable.

 

Fishwing, I think your point about sexual output has merit if this species was self sustaining, though this is not the objective of evolution or natural selection, just as long as the child is allowed to reproduce within the general population, its genetic material would continue to change over time. Hypothetically, If egg laying species could become internal gestating species, then there had to be a beginning somewhere like this. What if several hundred million years ago, the same thing happened and a mother egg layer died out leaving one child, born of internal gestation, to carry her genetic mutation. That child has its own offspring carrying on the mutation, whether successfully or not. In another generation, more mutations occur to adapt the mother's toward internal gestation.

 

I just find this very fascinating to think of the possibilities that one change in one single egg could have launched into so many changes over time.

[Fishwings]

I agree that not all mutations have to be defintely self sustaining at first, but for such rare and deleterious mutations such as above, the frequency of the mutation will just not propagate into the population because the mother does not have a high progeny output. The mutation can arise again in the population, but it will not become anything if natural selection favours so strongly against it. So I see what you're saying in that it could change from being fitness reducing into being sustainable, but only if the mutation wasn't so harmful that it ends the production of progeny after few generations.

 

It's just hard for me to believe that, in birds where egg laying is such a specialized mechanism, that such a dramatic and fitness reducing incident could be the beginning of internal gestation borne from oviparity, especially if the mechanism behind it is deleterious. It just makes more sense to me that smaller, less harmful mutations accumulated over a large period of time in the right environmental/biotic situations allowed internal gestation to be favoured and thus evolved.

 

But it would be cool if this incident was largely genetic. Sometime in the future we'll be able to accurately relate sequenced genomics to complicated devlopmental genetics such as these.

 

.... And that may be the time where we find out which genes cause people to be gay too : D

[markycielo]

i read somewhere that the chicken came first since... but it took a different angle of consideration... something about a hormone... i don;t really recall...

 

the article is sad.. i like chickens... why'd it have to die! nooo!