scienceillustrated.com.au | 27than 7000 years ago, bred a red
junglefowl with a grey
junglefowl to produce the
domestic bird we Aussies call a
bloody idiot chook.
That’s right. Chickens are
junglefowl like dogs are
wolves (see box). Why don’t
more people answer the
question this way? Because
they don't think in terms of
species, maybe. If someone is
trying to use a particular
animal to challenge evolution,
the first thing you should do is
check what the animal has
supposedly evolved from.
The chicken is Gallus gallus
domesticus, a subspecies of
Gallus gallus, the red junglefowl.
Because of the chicken’s yellow
skin gene, and a few other genetic
markers, there’s strong evidence that
the red junglefowl was hybridised with
the grey junglefowl (Gallus sonneratii).
Why did this happen? Some studies
suggest Asian cultures first bred red
junglefowl for cock-fighting, around
5000 BCE. Further genetic analysis of
chickens, though, shows that
domestication took place in several
areas and even as far west as India.
The red junglefowl was a good
candidate for domestication because,
among other things, it can massively
boost its rate of reproduction when it
has access to plenty of food. All we have
to do is feed ‘em up, and the junglefowl
produces lots of eggs. Yummy!
At some point, what probably started
by accident became very much
deliberate, and domesticated junglefowl
- true chickens – were introduced to
Europe around about 3000 BCE.
Those were pretty mad chickens
though. Think of the most craziest, peck-
happy rooster you ever fled from
screaming as a child, and multiply by
about ten. Getting chicken eggs, even as
a Roman, would have been a bit of a test
of fortitude. You'd need a stick.
Recent DNA analysis of chicken bones
shows that in the Middle Ages, chicken
breeders finally began selecting for birds
that were less aggressive and which
began laying earlier.
This is an important point actually.
Even over the time we’ve had the
WHICH CAME
FIRST, THE DOG
OR THE WOLF?
What? What’s the problem? It’s
basically the exact same question.
Yet everyone knows dogs are
descended from, indeed are still a
sub-species of, wolves. And no one
seems to have a problem with that?
Both species – Canis lupus and
Gallu s gallus – initially benefited
from hanging around near human
populations, because we got them
extra food, one way or another.
Eventually we noticed them,
caught some of them, bred them,
and the rest is history.
However, that there are hundreds
of breeds of dogs and hundreds of
breeds of chicken is surely no
coincidence. The way both species
can produce such radically
different phenotypes from the
same set of genetic code is
probably key to the reason we were
even able to domesticate them in
the first place.chicken – only 7000 years, give or
take – we’ve continued to change
it. Just look at all the amazing
breeds and varieties at the Royal
Easter Show.
Quite what the Romans would
have thought of our
hypotrophied breast-muscled,
relatively bland-tasting
frankenchickens created as a
result of industrial farming, I
shudder to think.
So the next time someone busts
out this tired old cliché of a
scientific “gotcha”, you can now
respond as we all should have for
years. The egg came before the
chicken, because the first chicken
(well, the first clutch really) had a red
junglefowl for a mother.HERE'S ONE WE
MADE EARLIER
Though by "we", we mean "nature".
Apart from the legs and tail, an
alligator foetus looks very birdlike.
Or... is it that birds look alligator-like?