Length, 1.25 mm; diameter, 0.4 mm. Shell: cylindrical; with fine spiral striae; white. Spire: protoconch of one and one-half smooth whorls; teleoconch of four inflated whorls, the three abapical whorls about equal in size, the last whorl long and partly uncoiled; suture
constricted. Sculpture: microscopic spiral striae. Aperture: subcircular; peristome continuous; inner margin of outer lip somewhat thickened; umbilical chink sometimes noticeable. Color: white.
Shells are occasionally found in sediments to depths of about 10 m.
Type locality: Kaneohe Bay, Oahu. Holotype: Bernice P. Bishop Museum No. 9758. Paratypes: Australian Museum; British Museum (Natural History); U. S. National Museum.
The Hawaiian shells differ from those of N. japonica Habe, 1961b, from Kyushu, Japan by the lesser number of whorls (four versus seven) and smaller protoconch; they are about half the size of the shells of N. kelseyi (Bartsch, 1911) from San Diego, California. This species is named for Dr. Tadashige Habe of the National Science Museum, Tokyo, who first recognized the genus as distinct.