Figure 21. Partitions around medoids (PAM) analysis of the Proterochampsia subset dataset: A) including outgroup at five groups and B) no outgroup at five groups. In order to see if we could detect discontinuity within these taxa (which is reasonable given that some of them have wings, whereas others do not), we determined to increase the taxic relevance cutoff from 0.20 to 0.29 to run it again. Raising the cutoff increased the number of included characters from 44 to 104, but it resulted in the exclusion of four taxa: the lagerpetid Dromomeron and three pterosaurs (Caelestiventus, Cacibupteryx, and Austriadraco). Thankfully, removal of these taxa does not result in the loss of a particular group (e.g., lagerpetids and dimorphodontids are still represented). The 0.29 Pterosauromorpha analysis BDC results did show actual blocks of positive correlation, although there were few instances of negative correlation (Figure 43). The Spearman BDC plot shows more instances of positive correlation than the Pearson BDC plot. As a result, three blocks of positive correlation are present on the Spearman plot: 1) Lagerpetidae, 2) Eudimorphodontoidea, and 3) the rest of the pterosaurs (Figure 43B). The Pearson BDC also showed three blocks of positive correlation composed of the same taxa, but the pterosaurs Rhamphorhynchus and Eudimorphodon and the likely lagerpetid Scleromochlus showed no instances of shared positive correlation with any other taxa in the analysis (Figure 43A). The MDS results for the 0.29 Pterosauromorpha subset analysis show a clear separation between the three lagerpetids and the pterosaur taxa (Figure 44). The lagerpetids form a trajectory in character space with Scleromochlus on the end closest to the pterosaurs and Lagerpeton on the other end. There are two tight clusters of pterosaur taxa. One contains Austriadactylus, Preondactylus, and MCLAIN, CLAUSEN, PEREZ, BEEBE, AND AHTEN Archosauromorph Baraminology 2023 ICC 507
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