Riddle of whether the chicken or the egg came first is finally solved by scientists

SCIENTISTS believe they have finally cracked the age-old question of which came first — the chicken or the egg?

They say the tools to ­create eggs appeared long before chickens evolved.

How the first life forms — single-cell organisms around 3.7billion years ago — evolved into far more complex forms is still being researched.

Now experts at Geneva University have turned to a single-celled species discovered in 2017 in Hawaiian marine sediments.

Chromosphaera perkinsii separated from the animal evolutionary line a billion years ago.

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

They say this indicates such development existed before the first animals appeared around 800million years ago.

Previous research suggests even hard-shelled eggs, like those of chickens, did not likely evolve until 300million years ago.

Therefore, say the team, nature could “create eggs” way before modern-day chickens arrived on the scene around 10,000 years ago.

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