Riddle of whether or not the hen or egg got here first is lastly cracked by scientists

Scientists reckon they’ve finally solved the age-old conundrum of which came first — the chicken or the egg?

They suggest that the mechanisms to create eggs existed long before chickens evolved. The evolution from the first life forms — single-cell organisms around 3.7 billion years ago — into more complex forms is still under investigation.

Now, researchers at Geneva University have focused on a single-celled species found in 2017 in Hawaiian marine sediments. Chromosphaera perkinsii split from the animal evolutionary line a billion years ago.

The team discovered that once its cells reach their maximum size, they divide into multicellular colonies with a 3D structure, resembling the early stages of animal embryonic development.

This suggests such development existed before the first animals appeared around 800 million years ago, The Sun reports.

Earlier research indicates even hard-shelled eggs, like those of chickens, likely didn’t evolve until 300 million years ago. Thus, the team believes nature could “create eggs” long before modern-day chickens emerged around 10,000 years ago.

Marine Olivetta, from the Swiss university’s biochemistry department, told Nature journal: “It’s fascinating, a species discovered so recently allows us to go back in time a billion years.”

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