Taxonomy of fossil coralline algal species: Neogene Lithophylloideae (Rhodophyta, Corallinaceae) from southern Spain

The anatomy of coralline algae is relatively simple. This, together with high intraspecific variability, reduces characters used as diagnostic criteria in delimiting species in present-day coralline algae to a very few, most of which can be recognized in fossil representatives of this family. Similar taxonomic procedures may thus be used at the species level both in modern and fossil coralline algae. Extant species of this subfamily can be recognized in fossil material. This study of Lithophylloideae from the Neogene of southern Spain describes five species (Lithophyllum dentatum, L. incrustans, L. nitorum, L. orbiculatum, and L. pustulatum), which are all found in the present-day Atlantic and western Mediterranean. Palaeontological studies on coralline algae, at least those from the late Cenozoic, have to take into account modern species and their current taxonomy, as coralline algal species have long stratigraphic ranges and many extant species were presumably already present in the Neogene.