Posted on 06/22/2017 8:51:26 PM PDT by DUMBGRUNT
But the universe of wild bird eggs is far weirder and more diverse than the oval products on the supermarket shelf. Hummingbirds lay eggs shaped like Tic Tac mints - "perfect little ellipses," per ornithologist and evolutionary biologist Mary Stoddard. Sandpiper eggs come to peaks, in the manner of teardrops. Owls plop out tight spheres not unlike ping-pong balls ... scientists linked egg shapes to birds' flight behavior. Stronger fliers, such as swallows, had elongated or pointy eggs. Birds that couldn't fly so far or fast had rounder, more symmetric ones... Aristotle, said Douglas G.D. Russell, curator of the egg and nest collections at London's Natural History Museum, "believed the cock hatched from a pointed chicken egg and hens from the rounder." The analysis revealed adaptations for an aerodynamic body had a "knock-on effect" for egg shape, Stoddard said. Pointy or elongated eggs don't help a gravid bird fly, in other words. But the demands of powerful flight restructured internal organs. The abdominal cavity of the superior fliers became smaller, for example, forcing egg shape to change
(Excerpt) Read more at ndtv.com ...
“But which came first?’
Google knows.
So in a nutshell (or an eggshell, if you like), two birds that weren’t really chickens created a chicken egg, and hence, we have an answer: The egg came first, and then it hatched a chicken. Maybe the question we should be asking is: Which came first, the proto-chicken or the proto-chicken egg?
The rooster.
Natural selection took out the birds that produced cubes and rectangles.
Not even Google has a handle on that one.
Also see #21.
For the friend who has everything. “Bet you don’t have one of these!” I can see some catering service using those to make hors d’oeuvres that are exact and coordinated.
Yes, and we all know how Captain Hook died.
Well you know what they say about monkeys and typewriters, so given trillions of years I’m sure a chicken and a vagina can produce Shakespeare.
I have one! They’re tedious and time-consuming to use, but the finished product garners much amazement at parties :-)
They hurt less coming out??
/hellifino
The angle of the dangle...
Why do I always have to be the smart guy who figures this stuff out?
No matter what shape eggs happened to be, by definition they’d be egg shaped.
Eggs are tapered on the ends so the hen’s vagina doesn’t slam shut.
I’d heard years ago the eggs are shaped as they are to keep the Chicken’s thangy from slamming shut after laying the egg.
25 seconds...
Beat me by 25 seconds. GMTA.
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