That White Stringy Whatchamacallit

Okay, you're right, it's not an embryo until it's fertilized, but that white stringy thing attached to the yolk is what would become an embryo if it was fertilized. I seem to remember learning that in Ms. Tichy's biology class, but maybe it was somewhere else. There is another word for it, but I'm not sure what it is. I was thinking "zygote", but that's just another word for "embryo". The closest word I can find is "gamete", but that seems to be a single cell. You've got your male gamete, which is a sperm cell, and you've got your female gamete, which is an egg cell. When those two gametes come together, they form a zygote, which develops into an embryo. It would seem that an unfertilized egg would still have a gamete inside it, but it would remain a gamete and never develop into an embryo.
You know, now that I think of it, I seem to remember that any unfertilized egg is composed of a single cell. That's counterintuitive, but it might explain why a chicken can lay an unfertilized egg. Unfertilized mammalian eggs are composed of a single cell. They are much smaller than a bird's egg, but that might be because they need to develop inside the mother's body.

My father used to raise pigeons, and I seem to remember him telling me that he could tell if a pigeon's egg had an embryo inside it. I suppose he held it up to a light, but I also remember seeing him shake an egg next to his ear and say, "That one's clear." and throw it out. Pigeons usually lay two eggs and then sit on them till they hatch. If the eggs didn't hatch in the prescribed time period, my dad would check them to see if they were viable, and discard them if they weren't. Otherwise the mother pigeon might waste her time sitting on those bad eggs instead of going to see the daddy pigeon so she could lay two more eggs.

Anyway, Our fertilized eggs didn't look any different inside than store bought eggs, except that the yolks were a darker yellow, but that was because we fed our chickens so well. Yesterday I told you that the white stringy thing would get bloody looking if the embryo started to develop but, now that I think of it, I don't remember ever seeing that happen. I have seen eggs with blood in them, but I think that was due to a different cause. On rare occasions we have found supermarket eggs with blood in them, and those eggs were almost certainly not fertilized. When the commercial operators candle their eggs, they are probably looking for blood not embryos, and I suppose they miss one now and then.

That's all I've got for now. Maybe I will find out more stuff this weekend.