It is a good practice to use old paleontological collectionsfor taxonomic revisions, and Andreas May rightly usedsuch material, housed in the Museo Geominero in Madrid (May 2006). On the other hand, however, there are significantrisks connected with using museum material and theyare clearly seen in his paper.It should be emphasised, that the type is not only a specimen,but it must be accompanied by exact stratigraphicaland geographical data of its sampling location. As it happensso often these data may be missing, dubious or openly false.And it seems this is also the case with Phillipsastreatorreana minuta as revised and presented by May. Knowingthat he cannot indicate the precise stratigraphic horizonof the holotype, May decided to select the only existingspecimen (at Museo Geominero) as the lectotype, whichcan be either from the Sta. Lucia Fm. (spanning theEmsian/Eifelian boundary) or from the upper Portilla Fm.(Upper Givetian). As for the taxonomy of this material thereis some doubt, because of its poor longitudinal section,which is off-axis. Measurements I have made and comparisonwith my other material indicate that this colony falls intothe variability range for the upper Givetian Phillipsastrea“pradoana”, as presented in my recent paper (Wrzołek2005, table 3, see also remarks at p. 178), with rather thinsepta, as opposed to thicker septa of Ph. torreana.My taxonomyis based on 8 specimens from the Cantabrian Mts, so itis probably better than those of May (1 specimen) but ofcourse it may not hold when more material becomes available.As it happens, “pradoana” is not a good species namefor a Phillipsastrea because, as Coen-Aubert noted (2002,p. 33), the holotype of Acervularia pradoana Haime in deVerneuil & Barrande is a representative of the genusArgutastrea. So there is a nomenclatorial problem, to find asuitable species to accomodate those phillipsastreids erroneouslyassigned to Phillipsastrea pradoana, but due to theabove-outlined problems with its type material the namePh. minuta should not be used at present.As for Radiastraea arachne as presented by May,I would hesitate to accept if it is conspecific withR. arachne, but I have little or no doubt it is not congenericwith Phillipsastrea. Among the phillipsastreid speciesgroups (Wrzołek 2005, p. 164 and the following) somewhatsimilar are the Famennian species of the Sudetes(Berkowski 2002: Scruttonia kunthi and the other species),lacking the horseshoe dissepiments, with very thin septaand negligible septal expansion, whereas May’s materialhas shorter septa and is of much older age.It is a pity that Andreas May did not make additionalsampling, as it might have allowed him to recognize theoriginal sampling horizon(s) of Almela and Revilla; ifdone, it might give him more material, and a new perspectiveof better knowledge of the species studied, the nomenclature,variability, affinities and biogeographic significance.I hope this can and will be done.
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