A large fossil limpet from the Isolated Hill Limestone (Oligocene) of Mason River, Marlborough, is described asPatella (Scutellastra) kermadecensis auroraen. subsp., a subspecies of the living Kermadec giant limpet. Thus this limpet is not a primary endemic species at the Kermadec Islands, but a surviving relict population of a species formerly more widespread during the Tertiary. Such relict populations in the Indo‐West Pacific imply that the tropics were not immune from the effects of Pleistocene climatic fluctuations.