The Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Creationism (2018)

with negative BDC against outgroups. MDS also separated all Hadrosauridae members from its outgroups, and the hadrosaurids did appear to be two clusters of taxa. The first two MDS axes explain nearly all the variance. PCA affirmed the separation of Hadrosauridae from its outgroups yet strongly suggested two morphological groups within Hadrosauridae: Saurolophinae and Lambeosaurinae. Analysis of Cruzado-Cabellero and Powell’s (2017) more complete matrix made the subfamily division clear (Fig. 81). Additionally, a morphological gap in the Saurolophinae subfamily (Kritosaurini + Brachylophosaurini versus Edmontosaurini + Saurolophini) suggests deeper division may exist. The disjunct morphoseries appears to be series of taxa in two ends of a common spatial trajectory, as if linking taxa are missing. These groups may ultimately be connected or they could be two holobaramins whose similar ordinations reflect deeper biological similarities ( e.g ., similar trophic or ecological functions). C. Implications of morphospatial patterns An even more interesting, and structurally deeper, disjunct morphoseries appears to be present between basal tetanurans and tyrannosauroids. The baraminic distance relationships were too complex to represent with BDC (Fig. 16). The BDC plot was poorly defined due to the inclusion of taxa from multiple taxonomic families. The same data plotted with PCA revealed several morphological clusters, with smaller groups nested within (Fig. 17). The divisions reflected distinct structural designs within Tetanurae: a Tyrannosauroidea series (top, numbered “1”); non- tyrannosauroid coelurosaurs (with numbered subgroups, left); and a non-coelurosaur tetanuran series (unnumbered, right). PCA was a better alternative for analyzing complex, multi-family matrices since morphological disparity is easily accommodated and clearly visible in multivariate space. Of interest here is the gap between the tyrannosauroids and tetanurans. The disjunct morphoseries within the Saurolophinae reflected smaller-scale differences within a subfamily. The tyrannosauroids and non-coelurosaur tetanurans have the appearance of a spatial connection across deeper morphological character space ( i.e ., at least family-level discontinuity). Thismay suggest some intrabaraminicmorphologies unfolded across common biological character-space trajectories. The closest biological analogy would be an ontogenetic-like unfolding of species. It is as if each successive species “step” was nearly identical but differed in key characteristics along a linear series with recognized end points (Wise 2014). If so, the aligned morphospatial ordination between tyrannosauroids and non- coelurosaur tetanurans may be due to similar ecological, functional, or biomechanical requirements shared by each group. This suggests tyrannosauroids and non-coelurosaur tetanurans possibly share deep common biological similarities ( e.g ., developmental). Indeed, tyrannosaurids were originally classified as “carnosaurs” (essentially, the big meat-eating dinosaurs) alongside animals like Allosaurus and Megalosaurus . However, Matthew and Brown (1922) noted that “although paralleling megalosaurs in their huge size, massive proportions, short neck and large head, differ from them and resemble the coelurids and ornithomimids in the construction of the pelvis and elongate quadrate” (p. 375). Despite such observations tyrannosaurids were often classified as “carnosaurs” even into the late 20 th century by some researchers (e.g., Molnar et al . 1990). It is very likely that tyrannosaurids are convergent with “carnosaur” tetanurans in acquiring their large size independently in the pre-Flood world (Aaron 2014b). Tyrannosauroidea is also important since it was the first dinosaur assigned to a holobaramin (Aaron 2014 b ). Aaron applied BDC and MDS to four data matrices to make the determination (Brusatte et al . 2010; Carr and Williamson 2010; Xu et al . 2012; Lü et al . 2014). We report findings similar to Aaron: the Tyrannosauroidea (to the exclusion of Yutyrannus , Dilong , and the Proceratosauridae) show both positive BDC within their group and negative BDC outside. MDS results displayed linear arrangements of outgroup and Tyrannosauroidea taxa positioned at nearly right angles. The ordination of Tyrannosauroidea in PCA (not performed by Aaron but reported here) showed a complimentary but slightly different arrangement than MDS. PC 2 separated morphologies along an axis with coelurosaur morphologies on one end – ornithomimosaurs Harpymimus and Pelecanimimus , alongside Archaeopteryx – up through dromaeosaurids toward the middle of the axis, and Allosauroidea near the distant end. Tyrannosauroidea is clustered toward one end of PC 1 with member genera aligned nearly perpendicular to the theropod-maniraptoriform continuum on PC 1. Tyrannosauroid morphologies clustered in a smaller, separated portion of PCAmorphospace. Close spatial clustering of Tyrannosauroidea is a function of nearly identical morphologies, suggestive of a holobaramin. The only outlier was Eotyrannus ; Aaron (2014b) likewise pondered the relationship of Eotyrannus . A partial solution suggested by PCA is that incomplete Eotyrannus data hindered the analysis (only 30% of the 638 characters for Eotyrannus were present in the 2004 data matrix). The large proportion of missing data resulted in an Eotyrannus ordination near the middle of the PCA axes (or, near 0 values for both PCs 1 and 2 as seen in Fig. 22). The results here were consistent with Aaron’s findings of the Tyrannosauroidea holobaramin. Brusatte and Carr’s (2016) matrix provided greater detail but with similar results. PCA confined the tyrannosauroid series to a narrow range of PC 1 while distributing them along PC 2 with the larger Tyrannosaurinae and smaller Albertosaurinae on opposite ends of the series. The ordinations of Bistahieversor , Raptorex , Xiongguanlong , and Eotyrannus were orthogonal, or outside of, the Tyrannosaurinae but closer to Albertosaurinae (Fig. 23). While PC 3 arranged most of the tyrannosaurs in the same series as PC 2, PC 3 grouped the other tyrannosaurid members separately (Fig. 24). The most recent data therefore suggests Tarbosaurus , Tyrannosaurus , Daspletosaurus , Teratophoneus , Qianzhousaurus , and Alioramus form a series. Gorgosaurus and Albertosaurus are part of the series but are distinct within it. The remaining tyrannosauroids ordinate outside the others and their relationship is uncertain. If holobaramins are always linear series, then these other members fall outside. At the same time, tyrannosauroids may be an example of a holobaramin with complex spatial relationships. Indeed, we might not expect series to always be linear, but for various branching patterns to be possible (e.g., equids in Cavanaugh et al . 2003). An unexpected finding was the identification of stratomorphic outgroup series. Sauropod, thyreophoran, and ceratopsian ordinations included series of taxa connecting the outgroups to the ingroups. BDC results for Otero et al . (2015) revealed little Doran et al. ◀ Dinosaur baraminology ▶ 2018 ICC 445