“Macrozafra n. gen. Type: Clathurella subabnormis Suter.
Here would also be placed the only other Recent species included by Suter, Clathurella nodicincta Suter. But from the series available I would maintain Columbella saxatilis Murdoch as a third good form, very close to subabnormis but apparently distinct in its higher spire, stouter shell, and narrower and less flexuous axials; described from Takapuna, it would seem to be a northerly regional representative of the Lyall Bay subabnormis. Suter's poor figure in the “Manual” is quite different from his original illustration, and seems to have been taken from a northern shell; when the original figure is contrasted with Murdoch's picture of saxatilis (Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. 37, pl. 8, fig. 15, 1905) the differences are at once apparent.
There is a Tertiary ancestral (undescribed) species from the “Miocene,” but otherwise no fossil species of this group are known. M. nodicincta would seem to be very closely related to the Tasmanian and South Australian Pyrene calva Verco. The Australian early Tertiary Columbella balcombensis Pritchard (P.R.S. Vict., vol. 17, N.S., pt. 1, p. 324, 1904), though also nearly allied, represents a separable group.”
(Finlay, 1927: 431)
