An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the animal hatched. Most arthropods, vertebrates (excluding live-bearing mammals, reptiles and fish), and mollusks lay eggs, although some, such as scorpions, do not.
Reptile eggs, bird eggs and monotreme eggs are laid out of water and are surrounded by a protective shell, either flexible or inflexible. Eggs laid on land or in nests are usually kept within a warm and favorable temperature range while the embryo grows. When the embryo is adequately developed it hatched, i.e., breaks out of the egg's shell.
Eggs laid by many different species, including birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish have probably been eaten by humans for millennia. Popular choices for egg consumption are chicken, duck, roe, and caviar, but a wide margin the egg most often humanly consumed is the chicken egg, typically unfertilized. Eggs are also an important symbol in folklore and mythology, often representing life and rebirth, healing and protection, and sometimes featuring in creation myths.
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- Similar to normal birds, Harpies in the Monster Musume manga series occasionally lay unfertilized eggs. The exact number can vary at the subspecies, with regular Harpies only laying one or two eggs about every few weeks, while Poultry Harpies lays several eggs nearly every day which is a hindrance to their daily life but not to the same extend as Pans, Satyrs, Minotaurs and Dairy Breed Centaurs with their lactation.
- Although it's shown that Papi only lay one egg at a time, she mentioned that during the harpies' mating seasons, her race fly all over the world to mate with various male humans so that means only during those periods, they'll lay clutches of eggs instead which means they're all fertilized by different men.
- Unfertilized (or possibly even fertilized) Harpies' eggs are considered a prized commodity on the black market in the Monster Musume manga series, whereby Kasegi in Chapter 14 thought to himself that he could get 3 to 5 million yen for selling Papi's egg (the official english translation of the manga ups the value by switching the currency to US dollars).
- Although there are many avian-like, arthropod-like, and reptilian-like Liminal species, Harpies are currently the only Liminal species in the manga series who are officially confirmed to hatch from eggs.
- Okayado once made an illustration showing that Killer Bees also hatch from eggs, but since this illustration was never included in the canon of the manga series, this detail has not been officially confirmed.
- Although it has been confirmed that some companies like the Black Lily Innovations Research Laboratory also deals in the sale of unfertilized Harpy eggs, it is not known for what the eggs are actually used. One possibility is that the eggs are eaten, but since Harpies are a sentient species, that would be more than morally reprehensible, even considering that the eggs are unfertilized. This is somewhat proven after Miia ends up boiling Papi's (unfertilized) egg by accident while cooking; once everyone else realized what happened, their reactions were primarily those of horror.[1]
- Despite this, the fourth of The Eight Brothers still eats the eggs that his girlfriend (a Harpy) occasionally lays. However, of the pair, he is the one most conflicted about the moral implications, while his girlfriend pays no mind to it in any form.
- A morbidly popular Japanese dish is Oyakodon, which is a special sauce mixture prominently featuring chicken meat and eggs atop a bowl of rice. The dish symbolically represents a parent and child meeting each other one last time before the end.
- Boiled eggs are Miia's favorite food, and is the one dish she can cook without any catastrophic results.[1]Kimihito also used to make them for her daily before the other homestay girls moved in.[2]
- During Papi's first egg-laying, the Kurusu household was unaware that Harpies could lay unfertilized eggs. As such, once they found out she was laying, the other girls thought that Kimihito had had sex with Papi in secret and gotten her pregnant and thus violated the terms of the Cultural Exchange Between Species Bill, causing them to give him a mass-beating that wound up being pointless once they learned that the egg wasn't fertilized.[1]
- In stark contrast to insect, montreme, avian and reptilian eggs, amphibian and fish eggs which are laid in water are semi-translucent and porous, with a thin membrane making them much more susceptible to predators than shelled eggs. To defend their young, amphibian eggs are coated in a foul-tasting mucus to deter predators, while most fish bury their eggs under rocks after mating to hide them from prying eyes.
- Eggs laid on land needs to be kept at a certain temperature constantly for them to be hatched.
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