The shell is small (maximum length 18 mm) and fusiform. The spire is high and acute, consisting of one and one-half strongly angulate nuclear whorls and six weakly angulate postnuclear whorls; the protoconch is apically depressed and canted opposite to the cant of the other whorls. The suture is weakly marked. The body whorl is of moderate size. The aperture is small and ovate, with a large, inverted-U-shaped anal sulcus. The outer apertural lip is erect and weakly, coarsely crenulate; its inner surface bears five large, knoblike denticles, one above the shoulder margin and four evenly spaced along the remainder of the lip surface. The columellar lip is adherent above, detached and weakly erect below; on the columella, a short distance above the canal, is a single tubercle. The siphonal canal is moderately short, moderately open, and weakly, dorsally recurved.
The body whorl bears six or seven prickly varices, these broader anteriorly, more slender over the shoulder. Intervarical axial sculpture is lacking. Primary spiral sculpture consists of four cords, at times bifid, the upper one of each pair the more prominent; there are minor intercalary cords on the body and on the canal. The intersection of these cords with the varices is marked by the development of short, scalelike spines. Shell color is chocolate-brown, with two gray-white to yellow-white spiral bands, one at the shoulder margin and one at the base of the body. The aperture is suffused with blue-gray.
Southern Gulf of California to Central America.