On the Skewed View of Dinosaurian Diversity

So I have promised the followers of ADAD a "cladocircle" (meaning, cladogram diagrammed as concentric circles, rather than a tree) for Dinosauria for about a month now.

And I really, really, really want to get it right.

So I've been plotting it out, and thinking it through, and putting way too much effort into it. And here's the problem.

There's no way to make an unbiased, accurate circle that isn't way too cluttered or not cluttered enough. The thing is is that the bulk of the clades of Dinosauria are in Theropoda - but, if you diminish Ornithischia and Sauropodomorpha, you elimate most of the morphological diversity. So what do you favor? Morphological diversity over numeral diversity? And what do you do with everything more derived than Avialae?

It's a problem with Dinosauria in that it clearly is impossible to truly showcase the diversity of the group in one graphic. I've been torn since I started the project. And the importance of accuracy, at least for me, means I do not want to cut corners. I want to show that Allosaurus and kin are more closely related to birds than Carnotaurus is. I want to show that the group including Diplodocus and Apatosaurus is actually relatively sparse compared to the horror that is Titanosauria. I want to showcase that Triceratops and Maiasaura are slightly more closely related than they are to Ankylosaurus. I want to demonstrate that Kulindadromeus is a fairly advanced Ornithischian and the fact that it had a full coat of floof is amazing.

How can I do all of that, realistically, in a diagram? You can do it in a tree, you can't do it in a circle.

So I'm stuck, but I won't give up.

I've sketched out a circle for the entirety of Dinosauria, but I know full well I'll have to do ones for other groups - zooming in on each level.

Surprisingly, showcasing the diversity of birds, specifically, is not nearly as hard as Dinosauria. Neornithes is the least of my challenges.

~ Meg