Studies of topotypes of Truncorotalia crassaconica from the East Coast Basin of New Zealand and populations of Tr. crassaconica at Ocean Drilling Program Site 1123 and Deep Sea Drilling Project Site 284 in the southwest Pacific revealed two morphospecies. One of these is a late Pliocene species, Truncorotalia crassaconica s.s., that has low, slit-like apertures with thin, smooth apertural lips. The other is Globoconella pseudospinosa n. sp., an early Pliocene form with arched apertures and pustulose apertural lips. The short stratigraphic ranges of both species are potentially useful as biostratigraphic markers for the subdivision of Plio-Pleistocene stages in New Zealand and the temperate southwest Pacific. Populations of Gc. pseudospinosa, with mostly sinistrally coiled specimens, occur throughout the lectostratotype of the New Zealand Opoitian Stage at Mangapoike River in the East Coast Basin and are confined to the early Pliocene (Opoitian) at sites 1123 and 284, between 4.57 and 4.10 Ma. Small populations of Tr. crassaconica s.s., with mostly dextrally coiled specimens, occur in the late Pliocene (Waipipian Stage) between 3.53 and 2.98 Ma. Sporadic occurrences of relatively rare, mostly sinistrally coiled specimens of Tr. aff. crassaconica occur earlier at sites 1123 and 284 in the late Miocene to Pliocene between ca. 5.5 and 3.53 Ma. These specimens are distinguished in having open umbilici and almost straight umbilical sutures, similar to the late Miocene specimens of Truncorotalia crassaformis.

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