Metaxia albicephala Kay, new species., M. Length, 4 mm; diameter, 0.90 mm. Shell: conical, narrow; dextrally coiled and with a cerithiopsidlike aperture; four beaded spiral threads on each whorl; white. Spire: protoconch of two and one-half white whorls, the apical whorl partly immersed and microscopically spirally striate; penultimate whorl with angular axial ribs and the abapical whorl smooth; teleoconch of six or seven slightly convex whorls; suture impressed, wide, shallow. Sculpture: spiral sculpture of four lightly beaded threads on each whorl, the beads rather flattened, more prominent on the last three threads, somewhat obsolete on the apical thread; suture with a spiral thread; base with a single cord. Aperture: subquadrate; base excavate; columella vertical; outer lip thin; anterior canal widely notched. Color: white. These shells are common in beach drift and sediments to depths of 12 m.
Type locality: Poipu Beach, Kauai, in beach drift. Holotype: Bernice P. Bishop Museum No. 9784. Paratypes: Australian Museum; British Museum (Natural History); U. S. National Museum.
The shells of M. albicephala are distinguished from those of M. brunnicephala from Hawaii and M. exaltata (Powell, 1930) from New Zealand by the distinctive white protoconch. The protoconch is also distinct from that of M. kermadecensis Marshall, 1977, from New Zealand, in lacking the prominent wavy spiral cords present in that species. Derivation of name: album, Latin — white; kephale, Greek — head. Refers to the white protoconch.