As Murex intermedius C.B. Adams:
Shell somewhat elongated, ovate fusiform, with about six or seven varices; the whorls are often more or less shouldered and are covered with a series of strong revolving ridges. Throughout the shell there are delicately crimped longitudinal frills. Sometimes the revolving ridges between the larger ones are flattened as though they had been pressed when in a soft state; canal rather short, nearly closed when the shell is fully adult. Color ashy white, often faintly banded with brownish. Length, 20; diameter, 10 mm.

The shell is moderately small for the genus (maximum length 15 mm) and fusiform. The spire is high, consisting of one and one-half smooth, bulbous nuclear whorls and six weakly convex postnuclear whorls. The suture is strongly impressed. The body whorl is moderately small and fusoid. The aperture is small and subcircular, with no apparent anal sulcus. The outer apertural lip is erect and finely crenulate, reflecting the endings of the spiral sculptural elements. The columellar lip is detached and moderately erect, The siphonal canal is short, narrowly open to the right, and sharply, dorsally recurved at its distal end.
The body whorl bears five to seven well-elevated, rounded varices, these separated by broad interspaces. The varices are appressed to the preceding whorl in the shoulder region and are sharply undercut on their trailing edges. Spiral sculpture consists of six cords of equal size, five
on the body and one on the canal. The sides of these cords bear laterally compressed, vaulted scales constituting expansions of axial lamellae that traverse the entire shell but are inconspicuous between the cords. Five fine, spiral striae incise the surface of each cord and the scales appressed to it. The leading edge of each varix is densely fimbriate.
Shell color is pale purple-brown, with two transverse brown bands, one at the suture and one on the lower half of the body. In nature, the presence of a moderately thick intritacalx, laid down as simple growth striae, frosts the entire shell in unworn specimens, imparting to the shell an all-white appearance. The aperture is white at its margin, two brown bands showing through in its recesses.

Bermuda to Brazil and offshore in the western Gulf of Mexico (Texas coast).