TYPE: Holotype not assigned in original description. TYPE LOCALITY: Off Port Nolloth on the Atlantic Ocean side of the Cape of Good Hope, South Africa. RANGE: From 14 miles south of the Cape of Good Hope to the mouth of the Orange River, western South Africa. HABITAT: Trawled in 40 to 100 fathoms on a clay substrate. DIMENSIONS: Adult specimens are 55 to 80 mm in length. SHELL DESCRIPTION: Shell is of medium size, stoutly pyriform with a short spire and pointed apex. Protoconch is sharp. Corrosion prevents an accurate whorl count. Teleoconch has about five sculptured, very convex whorls. Sculp ture is ill-defined, consisting of weak transverse lirae, about 1 mm apart, crossed by weak axial ribs about 0.75 mm apart. This produces a rather obscure latticework pattern over the surface. Some gerontic and worn shells show no sculpture whatsoever. Suture is deeply indented, but not canalled, and has sloping shoulders. Aperture is wide, about two-thirds the total length of the shell. Outer lip is simple; interior color is shiny ash-cream. Siphonal notch is wide and very shallow; fasciole absent. Parietal wall is raised and heavily glazed. Columella is curved, with about three to five plaits, which become stronger anteriorly. According to Koch (1948), the shell is usually encased in clay about 0.2 cm thick. Sometimes the animal deposits a layer of nacreous material on top, thus encasing the clay. Where the clay is thin or absent, the surface of the shell is a glossy cream; otherwise the surface color is mauve. ANIMAL AND RADULA: According to Koch (1948), the color of the animal is mauve. REMARKS: Volutocorbis lutosa differs from its closest relative, Volutocorbis abyssicola (H. Adams and Reeve, 1848), in being shorter and more ventricose and in having fewer plaits and a less pronounced surface sculpture. It is locally common.