my question is what were the feathers for???? What purpose did they serve???????
My understanding (albeit most likely wrong) was that birds evolved from dinosaurs...but...maybe some birds evolved into dinosaurs?????? Meaning there were birds before dinosaurs???? Strange stuff.
But if a velicoraptor has feathers...I would think that they either developed feathers for some reason...or they were descended from birds, and the feathers are just a throwback...like the canine teeth in humans...they've recessed under the gums, but they're still huge...and we used them to tear meat or fight each other.
So I guess I want to know what came first...the dinosaur or the feather
The dinosaurs evolved before feathers, but there were feathered dinosaurs around in the later periods.
What do feathers do? They protect from temperature variations, they allow you to appear bigger, they can help attract mates, and eventually they can help you glide/fly..