Figure 25. Partitions around medoids (PAM) analysis of the Phytosauria subset dataset in A) two groups and B) three groups. There is evidence for discontinuity separating the Poposauroidea from Loricata in the Pearson BDC, MDS, PAM, and FANNY results. As such, we propose that, currently, Poposauroidea and Loricata should both be recognized as apobaramins and strongly encourage further study into these groups. Among the non-paracrocodylomorphs, some groups are well-represented, like Ornithosuchidae and Gracilisuchidae, whereas Aetosauria is missing a great many taxa. Nevertheless, there is strong evidence for discontinuity separating Aetosauria, Gracilisuchidae, and Ornithosuchidae and continuity within each of these groups as evidenced by the clustering patterns (MDS, PAM, and FANNY) and correlations (BDC). Nevertheless, certain taxa are more difficult to sort out: Parringtonia, Ticinosuchus, and Nundasuchus. Nundasuchus is the least ambiguous of the three, consistently clustering with the Gracilisuchidae in all analyses. Ticinosuchus positively correlates with Gracilisuchidae + Nundasuchus in Pearson and Spearman BDC, but it also positively correlates with the Loricata in the Paracrocodylomorpha subset analysis. Thus, we ran some additional analyses that combined Ticinosuchus, Gracilisuchidae, and the Paracrocodylomorpha taxa that were somewhat inconclusive. Ticinosuchus does not correlate with any taxa in the Pearson BDC (Supplemental Figure 6a), but it does correlate positively with Mandasuchus, which correlates positively with the paracrocodylomorph Deucriasuchus in the Spearman BDC (Supplemental Figure 6b). In MDS (Supplemental Figure 7), Ticinosuchus is closest to the paracrocodylomorph taxa, and not the gracilisuchids. Given these analyses, we propose that OrnithoMCLAIN, CLAUSEN, PEREZ, BEEBE, AND AHTEN Archosauromorph Baraminology 2023 ICC 511
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