Shell up to 70 mm (about 3 inches) in length, elongate-ovate, solid and heavy. Whorls 7-9, apart from white and usually eroded nuclear whorls; spire whorls flat-sided, sutures distinct. Post-nuclear whorls sculptured with 4 or 5 spiral cords, cords becoming less prominent on the last 2 whorls where they are replaced by 5-8 punctate spiral grooves on the penultimate and 25-35 grooves on the body whorl. Whorls longitudinally striate, striae sometimes fine and obsolete and producing minute crenations at the sutures. Aperture moderately narrow, longer than the spire, smooth within; outer lip fairly straight, slightly constricted centrally, thickened and sculptured with close-set and usually rounded nodules. Columella covered with a thin and glazed callus, and with 5 or 6 close-set and oblique, whitish folds; siphonal canal straight, siphonal fasciole with about a dozen oblique cords, siphonal notch shallow. Dark brown or tan in colour, ornamented with a moderately narrow, white or cream-coloured subsutural band, and small white spots scattered on the lower half of the body whorl; interior of aperture fulvous-brown, siphonal canal occasionally stained purplish grey-anteriorly. Periostracum brown and moderately thin.

Range: East Africa to Polynesia; also Pliocene
of Indonesia.
Habitat: On coral reefs, under rocks and coral, generally on a hard reef substratum, within the intertidal zone.