The shell is turrited, speckled or mottled, and on the back of the expanded lip banded with white. The last 4 or 5 whorls are angular midway between sutures on the spire, and at the shoulder of the last whorl. The earlier whorls are rounded. Nucleus smooth; three following whorls having many low. narrow axial folds crossed by spiral threads; on the subsequent whorls the folds weaken above the angle and become nodular upon it; the slope above the angle becomes concave. On the last two whorls the axial folds disappear and the nodules become stronger. The spiral cords on the last whorl are strong and subequal below the nodules, weak above them. A lump precedes the anterior sinus of the outer lip. The lip expands, and is produced upward in a long straight process, as in S. aratrum. The aperture is white within, striate, especially above and below, the striae being weaker in the middle. The thick outer lip is tinged with brown at the edge. The callous of the inner lip and ventral face is white, with a faint brown tint on the convexity, but no chestnut blotch. Other characters about as in S. aratrum.
Length 75, diam. about 41 mm.; 10 whorls.
While this shell has much in common with Strombus aratrum Martyn, it differs in color of the aperture and ventral callous, and in the far stronger spiral sculpture. It appears to be widely spread in the Hawaii islands, but is nowhere common.

Strombus vomer hawaiensis Pilsbry, 1917. (Synonym: Strombus hawaiensis Pilsbry, 1917.) Length, 100 mm; diameter, 50 mm. Shell: solid, high-spired and with a projecting upper and outer lip; knobbed; glistening cream, aperture white to yellow. Spire: apical whorls angulate; suture barely impressed. Sculpture: spiral and axial threads on apical whorls; abapical whorls with a spiral of knobs and with spiral threads. Aperture: elongate; stromboid notch deep; outer lip flaring and thick, with a projection at the top; columella with 10 to 15 spiral lirae on the base; operculum yellow-brown, thick, longitudinally furrowed, edge serrated. Color: cream to fawn, maculated and speckled with brown, aperture white to yellow. Animal: cream with light brown spots, proboscis brown with white spots (F. W. Adams, 1966).
These strombids are rarely found, buried deep in sand at depths of 26 m.
S. vomer hawaiensis is the endemic Hawaiian subspecies of a polytypic species which has two other forms, S. v. vomer recorded from the Ryukyu Islands and New Caledonia, and S. v. iredalei which is found from western Australia to the Gulf of Carpentaria. Abbott (1960) suggests that the species was once widespread in the Pliocene, and as its range became restricted, two peripheral populations survived as
isolated and distinct gene pools. Fossil shells identified as S. aurisdianae by Oster-gaard (1928) may represent S. vomer hawaiensis.