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When did we start eating eggs?

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    When did we start eating eggs?

    I was watching one of those "extinction of the dinosaur" documentaries the other night, and something occurred to me. When did our ancestors - ie the early mammals - start to learn to raid nests for eggs? Many modern reptiles, like turtles and snakes, abandon their eggs after laying them (albeit modern turtles bury theirs on beaches). If dinosaurs exhibited similar lack of parenting instinct, and if there were no egg-eating predators, why would they, then a sudden change in mammalian behaviour - to start raiding nests and eating all the eggs - could significantly reduce a breeding population of dinos pretty rapidly, couldn't it? Could also explain why some of the dinosaurs that were theorised to look after eggs in the nest - like oviraptors - are the most likely evolutionary link to modern birds, who all nest and raise their young.

    Just got me thinking, if this theory has legs, maybe the meteorite strike alone wasn't the sole reason they were wiped out, and could explain why some other species "made it through" that event, like crocs and sharks.

    #2
    When did we start eating eggs?

    "We're gonna need a bigger eggcup."

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      #3
      When did we start eating eggs?

      Rogin, your journalistic 'we' is out of control.

      We, yesterday:


      Would dinosaurs' eggs not have been far too big for early mammals to snatch anyway?

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        #4
        When did we start eating eggs?

        Rogin the Armchair Fan wrote: Just got me thinking, if this theory has legs, maybe the meteorite strike alone wasn't the sole reason they were wiped out, and could explain why some other species "made it through" that event, like crocs and sharks.
        Them what made it through were generally very small mammals (who could subsist on little food) and things under water.

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          #5
          When did we start eating eggs?

          And millions of birds, which are not mammals and live above water.

          Modern day dinosaurs:

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            #6
            When did we start eating eggs?

            Either I'm really tired this evening (which I am), or just a bit confused by that middle para. Part of its syntax seems not to be there: also, by oviraptors 'theorised to look after eggs in the nest' do you mean their propensity for preying on the eggs of others, which, after all is what is long believed a distinct characteristic of the species (hence its name)? As to the slow extinction of other species as a result, it would surely have assisted this somewhat.

            It's widely held anyway that many dinosaur species 'did' protect and incubate their eggs - in particular, late Jurassic/Cretaceous sauropods such as cetiosaurus/camarasaurus and hadrosaurs like the maiasaura. (The latter's name means 'good mother lizard'.) The discovery of this has of course led experts to consider that many species may have been warm-blooded.

            Apologies if I've completely misread something back there.

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              #7
              When did we start eating eggs?

              As Jah said, egg-thieving was done by dinosaurs long before mammals rose up to threaten them in any way.

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                #8
                When did we start eating eggs?

                Rogin the Armchair Fan wrote: Just got me thinking, if this theory has legs
                Or indeed, if this theory has eggs.

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                  #9
                  When did we start eating eggs?

                  The big question for me is whether we started eating them before we started eating chickens.

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                    #10
                    When did we start eating eggs?

                    1981ish for me.

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                      #11
                      When did we start eating eggs?

                      Excitingly, this thread has inspired me to have fried eggs for my tea.

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                        #12
                        When did we start eating eggs?

                        Good job you didn't read the masturbatory insults thread first.

                        I'm having a jacket potato with cheese.

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                          #13
                          When did we start eating eggs?

                          And when you say 'having'....

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