this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2025
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This is a dumb question. The answer is the Egg, because that's how evolution works. Mutations happen in the egg, not after their born like Ninja Turtles. It went Proto Chicken,>Egg>Chicken.
Not even necessarily "proto-chicken", the definition of species is operational and breaks down at this level. It's like asking "how strong is this wind?" with a single air molecule. For species, the proto-chicken and the chicken separated by a single generation would be able to reproduce just fine, you need to pick further points to discern
I mean, I'm way oversimplifying, but that is the general idea of evolution. But yes it's far more gradual than one bird giving birth to a full modern chicken.
It isn't, but that wasn't my point either way. I'm emphasizing that this gradation you see (the "far more gradual" you wrote) actually applies constantly to the whole lineage, at any two points, unless they're very apart from each other, which means that "species" as a definition can't work when comparing generations that are too close together.
It's a language question, as you're asking that we define whether a (Chicken) Egg is an egg laid by a chicken or an egg that hatches into a chicken.
uh, mutations do happen after they are born (i've been irradiated a few times i'm sure i've got one or two). they just have to be in the gametes to be evolutionarily important.