Shell: A relatively tall, conical shell with a rather flat base, glossy and semitransparent if fresh, opaque when dead and weathered. The spire looks straight-sided in profile but is cyrtoconoid, the apical portion (apical angle 30-36°) tapering more than the basal (apical angle 15-20°). There are 10-11 swollen whorls, the sutures lying below the periphery of the upper whorl, each slightly incised. Because there is some indication of a subsutural ramp the whorls appear slightly angulated adapically. The ornament is variable; though growth lines occur in all shells as slight markings, prosocline subsuturally but becoming more orthocline as they cross the whorls. Spiral ridges may be very obvious, slight or absent, those on the adapical half of each whorl tending to disappear before the more basal ones. On the last whorl there may be 3-5, dropping to 2-4, and then 2-3 in more adapical whorls. The most adapical ridge on each whorl lies some distance from the suture, separated by a ramp lying at a large angle to the shell axis. In some shells each ridge has a narrow groove along its summit. The ridges are narrower than the intervening grooves and may disappear before reaching the aperture.
The protoconch has about 4 smooth whorls, the initial one rather swollen. Its height is 500-600 urn, its breadth 350-400 µm. The boundary between larval and adult shells is marked. Aperture. A rounded oval, lying in a gently prosocline plane, its long axis making an angle of c. 25° with that of the spire. The outer lip arises at a level below the periphery of the last whorl and just below the spiral ridges, its initial part showing an anal bay. It is a little turned out basally and it runs smoothly into a thin, curved columella. The lip here is a little everted over a groove leading to a deep and obvious umbilicus. Development of the inner lip over the last whorl is not marked and is absent in small shells. Colour. White. Size. 6x2.5 mm. Last whorl = about 40-45% of total shell height; aperture = 25% of total shell height.
Animal. There is no snout, the mouth (= opening of an introvert) lying on the underside of the head, from the anterior border of which arise the tentacles. Their bases are approximated and each has a sessile eye behind and lateral to its base. The mantle edge is smooth. The foot has a marked propodium on the dorsal surface of its anterior part (a mentum); the sole is broadest and truncated anteriorly, tapering behind. The lobes supporting the operculum vary from side to side that on the right the larger. Colour. White.

Geographical distribution. Mediterranean and thence north to the west coast of Sweden and the south coast of Norway. There are widespread records from the British Isles though few recent ones. Habitat. On bottoms of sand, muddy sand or gravel, 15-150 m deep.
Food. Unknown, but the presence of an acrembolic proboscis suggests that the animals are carnivores.