Shell rather small, short, broad, angled at the shoulder, obliquely laconical. Canal short, open. Apex acute, bent away from the shell's axis. Colour pale brown, inner lip light purple. Whorls six and a half, rapidly increasing. Sculpture: numerous varices, eight to the last whorl, beset the shell. They are low, but erect, feebly denticulate, descend obliquely from the shoulder to the base, above the shoulder converge very obliquely to the suture across an excavate un ribbed space. On the upper whorls they fade rapidly, becoming extinct on the penultimate. The intervariceal spaces are traversed by stout spiral ribs divided by broad deep grooves, about a dozen appearing behind the aperture, no scales occur on ribs or in grooves. Outer lip expanded, smooth within, denticulate without, edged with concentric frills. Inner lip straight below, arched medially, its margin expanded, free. Length 17 mm. ; breadth 13 mm.
A single living specimen from two hundred and fifty fathoms, which may not be adult.

Western Pacific, from Japan to New South Wales. Northern North Island, New Zealand, 67-515 m, taken alive at 110 m in association with solitary coral (Caryophyllia sp.), on which it was presumably feeding.

Rather thin, whorls angulate at the shoulders, siphonal canal narrow, attenuate, slightly extended; varixes consist of angular ridges made weakly crenulate at the margin by crossing spiral cords, about eight varixes and 12 primary spiral cords on the body whorl; aperture wide, ovate, outer lip simple, inner denticles and lirae lacking; columella callus forming a thin, reflected shield partly covering a small umbilicus. Cream, pink or pale rose.
2.5 cm. Southern Japan to southern NSW. Dredged at depths to 100 mtrs.
SOURCE: WILSON, Australian Marine Shells, part 2. 1994.