Shell fusiform-biconic, 20-35 mm. in height, thin, creamy-white, covered by a pale yellowish-buff periostracum. Whorls 4-5, plus a relatively large, broadly conic, erect protoconch of 4-4,5 smooth whorls, the last half whorl with distant very fine and weak axial threads, passing into a brephic half whorl of bicarinate tubercles. The upper band of tubercles rapidly disappear suturally but the lower one persists as a median angulation. This angulation becomes subobsolete over the last whorl. Post-nuclear sculpture of numerous slightly flexuous narrow axials which extend undiminished from suture to suture but fade out gradually over the lower base and anterior end, crossed by crisp spiral threads and cords, often weakly to distinctly granulose at the points of intersection. There are 5 or 6 spiral threads on the shoulder slope and about 5 of subcord strength, each with an intermediate thread, from the angulation to the lower suture. On the body-whorl, below the angulation, there is a fairly regular alternation of cords and threads, the cords becoming rather stronger towards the end of the canal. Spire less than height of aperture plus canal. Body-whorl rather deeply contracted over the neck, and produced anteriorly into a short slightly flexed unnotched canal. Outer lip thin and sharp, with a very shallow sinus, occupying the whole of the shoulder slope. Operculum small for the size of the aperture, thin, corneous, ovate, with a near terminal nucleus, incurved towards the pillar. Range—Philippines, East Africa, Gulf of Aden, off Andaman Islands and Flores Sea, 794-1100 metres; also Japan, 100-200 metres.
This species is somewhat variable, both in the relative height of the spire, and in its sculptural development, which is often weakly to distinctly granulose at the points of intersection of the axial and spiral ribbing. It is almost certain that Schepman's Trophon floresianus is identical, Smith's nereis is definitely so, and Kuroda's Japanese Sugitanitoma reticulata is probably only a shallower water form of the typical species, with which it was synonymised by Habe (1964).