Shell short, acutely fusiform, solid, with about five whorls; spire acute, suture flexuous, appressed; slope of the spire nearly flat, the turns being flattened or even slightly excavated above the periphery; transverse sculpture of lines of growth, and of (on the last whorl nine) peripheral undulations or ribs with about equal interspaces; these are almost confined to the periphery; in one specimen these are crossed by three or four about equidistant spiral ridges, faint, becoming prominent and keeled or nodulous on the ribs; this one has also two strong ridges on the canal, and is pure white; another specimen has only faint spiral stride on the canal, the periphery is smooth, the ribs lumpy, the color white with spiral brown lines toward the periphery; in still another the posterior row of nodulations becomes short, sharp, and spinous, the revolving threads seem more numerous on the base; canal short, rapidly tapering, open, pointed; a well marked siphonal fasciole is normal, one hardly shows it, another has it funicular; aperture elongate oval, outer lip with 5-7 strong lirae within; margin simple, acute; throat porcelain-white with a tendency to rosy or purple; columella smooth with a dash of rose or purple in some specimens, and two or three faint granulations, in the perfectly adult, near its anterior edge. Max. length of shell, 17.4 mm; of last whorl, 12.4 mm; of aperture, 10.0 mm; max. lat. of aperture, 4.5 mm; of shell, 10.5 mm.
NOT FIGURED

The shell is small (ca. 15 mm in length) and broadly biconic. The spire is high, consisting of five postnuclear whorls and a protoconch of undetermined nature. The suture is weakly impressed and undulate. The body whorl is slightly broader than high. The aperture is moderatelv large and ovate, with a narrow, deep anal sulcus. The outer apertural lip is unthickened ( immature characteristic) and bears seven slender lirae on its inner surface. The columellar lip is adherent, the columella broadly arcuate. The siphonal canal is moderately short and broadly open. The body whorl bears nine axial ridges (varices), these confined almost entirely to the shoul-der-margin region. Spiral sculpture consists of a variable number of weak to ephemeral cords, the two or three in the shoulder-margin region tending to become keeled or at least nodulose over the axial ridges.
Shell color is an almost translucent milky blue-white. The aperture is white and may have a mi¬nor rosy suffusion.

This is a singular shell, over which I have puzzled for some time. It has features recalling Latirus, Tritonidea, etc., but seems most fairly placed here. It is almost always overgrown with calcareous algae; one has had this coat gnawed off by some vegetarian mollusk, the result of which is a pretty vermicular surface sculpture, which looks as if it might be natural. The most characteristic feature of the shell is the peculiar half translucent milk-and-water whiteness of its substance.

Gulf of Mexico: off Cape Catoche, Yucatan. Florida: Off Key West.
(Isolated records from the fringes of the Gulf of Mexico and the northern Caribbean; off Cabo Catoche, Yucatan, Mexico; off Egmont Key, Florida, in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico; and Key West, Florida.)