Warm-water molluscs were transported to Wanganui Basin from the northeastern North Island during Pleistocene time as planktotrophic larvae. This is not possible at present, so their occurrence in Wanganui Basin correlates with breaches of the Auckland isthmus during high sea levels. The end of Nukumaruan time is clearly defined by the extinction of 29 genera of molluscs (most only locally) during this stage, including 15 at the end. The extinction likely was caused by the initial closure of the Auckland isthmus. Migrants to Wanganui from the northeastern North Island indicate that breaches of the isthmus during interglacials commenced in oxygen isotope stage (OIS) 25, just before the mid-Pleistocene transition (MPT). Appearances of taxa from Australia at Wanganui during OIS 17-9 therefore indicate that warm-water taxa were transported to New Zealand during interglacial maxima after the MPT. The migrants provide the first molluscan biostratigraphy at the OIS scale. The Castlecliffian/Nukumaruan boundary, at the base of Ototoka tephra at Ototoka Beach, Wanganui, falls within OIS 57, with an age of c. 1.63 Ma. It is also dated at 1.63 Ma by the position with respect to the geomagnetic polarity time-scale of three chemically indistinguishable tephra in ODP core 1123. This paper presents the first results of a reassessment of the taxonomy and time ranges of the fossil marine molluscan fauna that occupied New Zealand during the last 2 m.y. (latest Pliocene-Holocene). Time ranges are compiled in oxygen isotope stages rather than in the traditional "local" (or regional) stages in use in New Zealand. This should provide precision in time ranges of the order of 40 000-100 000 yr, rather than the 0.34-1.3 m.y. duration of New Zealand local stages of the latest Neogene (Nukumaruan, Castlecliffian, and Haweran Stages). The reassessment is aimed also, though, at providing evidence from Mollusca of climate change over this period. Much useful information on paleoclimates can be derived from Mollusca by comparison with the living tropical to warm-temperate fauna of the nearby Southwest Pacific and, in particular, of southeastern Australia. This project has shown that a number of supposedly restricted New Zealand taxa actually are much more widespread genera or species that extended their ranges to New Zealand either during part of Pliocene time or during warm interglacial periods of the Pleistocene. The more obvious of these are recorded and discussed here, particularly where they result in new generic assignments, or are species newly recognised as being in common with Australia and the tropical Pacific.