<P> If the question refers to chicken eggs specifically , the answer is still the egg , but the explanation is more complicated . The process by which the chicken arose through the interbreeding and domestication of multiple species of wild jungle fowl is poorly understood , and the point at which this evolving organism became a chicken is a somewhat arbitrary distinction . Whatever criteria one chooses , an animal nearly identical to the modern chicken ( i.e. , a proto - chicken ) laid a fertilized egg that had DNA identical to the modern chicken ( due to mutations in the mother 's ovum , the father 's sperm , or the fertilised zygote ) . Put more simply by Neil deGrasse Tyson : `` Which came first : the chicken or the egg ? The egg -- laid by a bird that was not a chicken . '' </P>
<P> If the question refers to chicken eggs specifically , the answer is still the egg , but the explanation is more complicated . The process by which the chicken arose through the interbreeding and domestication of multiple species of wild jungle fowl is poorly understood , and the point at which this evolving organism became a chicken is a somewhat arbitrary distinction . Whatever criteria one chooses , an animal nearly identical to the modern chicken ( i.e. , a proto - chicken ) laid a fertilized egg that had DNA identical to the modern chicken ( due to mutations in the mother 's ovum , the father 's sperm , or the fertilised zygote ) . Put more simply by Neil deGrasse Tyson : `` Which came first : the chicken or the egg ? The egg -- laid by a bird that was not a chicken . '' </P>
what is first the chicken or the egg
what is first the chicken or the egg
the egg
the egg