this post was submitted on 11 Nov 2024
540 points (96.9% liked)

Funny

6809 readers
658 users here now

General rules:

Exceptions may be made at the discretion of the mods.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

But is chicken-ness actually defined by genetics? An important characteristic of a chicken is its domesticated status, if you consider the birds they descend from, they are remarkably similar, and it's hard to imagine that any one mutation would have been what caused people to start calling them by their own name or considering them as a separate species. It's possible that the first chicken became the first chicken when it was captured by humans, and so preceded the first chicken egg.

[โ€“] disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Yup. The domesticated chicken has changed quite a bit since domestication began, but the species is still a domesticated chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus). The primary ancestor of the domestic chicken, the red junglefowl (Gallus gallus), birthed the first domesticated chicken between 7,000-10,000 years ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken