Which Came First, the Chicken or the Egg?

先有雞還是先有蛋？

Believe it or not， this question dates back to ancient Greece， where philosophers used it as an excuse to argue about reasons and results. Some might say the chicken came first. The reason is that you can’t have an egg without a chicken to lay it. While others might argue that the egg came first， since all chickens begin life inside an egg.

Both of them seem to have a point， right? In fact， the question has a rather clear answer.

“It’s pretty simple，” said Jasmina Wiemann， an expert from Yale University. “The egg is much older than the chicken. Ancestors of chickens date back 21 million years. That sounds pretty ancient， but the egg has been around for hundreds of millions of years.” Scientists discovered a fossilized bird from northwestern China with an egg in its body. It’s the most ancient egg ever discovered.

信不信由你，這個問題可以追溯到古希臘，哲學家們以此為理由來闡釋原因和結果。有人可能會說先有雞，因為沒有雞下蛋，就不可能有雞蛋。而另一些人則認為先有蛋，因為雞的生命是在蛋里開始的。

這兩種說法似乎都有道理，對吧？事實上，這個問題有一個相當明確的答案。

耶魯大學的專家杰思米娜·維曼說：“答案很簡單。蛋比雞古老得多。雞的祖先可以追溯到 2100萬年前。這聽起來很古老，但蛋已經存在了數億年。”科學家在中國西北部發現了一塊鳥化石，鳥的體內有一顆蛋。這是迄今為止發現的最古老的蛋。

The earliest eggs， however， would have looked quite different from those in your fridge. They would have been soft， kind of like turtle eggs you may see on beaches. The hard， protective coating came later.

By the way， you should know that egg-laying is part of humans’ evolutionary history. In other words， if you go back far enough in time， you might see our ancestors lay eggs. And women today still produce eggs through a process called ovulation. The eggs stay inside the human body and they’re very soft.

Strangely， some other mammals still reproduce by laying eggs， such as the duck-billed platypus and echidna.

Now， here’s a new question for you—which came first， the egg or the echidna?

不過，最早的蛋和冰箱里的蛋看起來很不一樣。它們是軟的，有點像你在海灘上看到的海龜蛋。蛋堅硬的保護層是后來形成的。

順便提一下，你應該要知道，產蛋是人類進化史的一部分。換句話說，如果你回到足夠久遠的過去，你可能會看到我們的祖先產蛋。今天的女性仍然通過叫作排卵的過程產生卵子。卵子留在體內，非常柔軟。

神奇的是，仍有一些哺乳動物通過下蛋來繁衍后代，比如鴨嘴獸和針鼴。

現在，有一個新的問題要問你——是蛋先出現，還是針鼴先出現？

Word Bank

lay v. 下（蛋），產（卵）

ancestor n. 祖宗；祖先

discover v. （第一個）發現

produce v. 生長；出產

process n. 過程；進程