Type species: Pleurotoma molengraaffi Tesch, 1915 (here designated). Timor. Pliocene.
Diagnosis. Shell small to medium-sized, fusiform to biconic, with high spire and long nearly straight siphonal canal. Protoconch paucispiral. Whorls strongly angulated at shoulder which bears median peripheral keel with row of large distinct nodules on all whorls. The tips of nodules attenuated and usually directed adapically. Concave subsutural zone smooth or with indistinct spiral riblets. Shell base and canal with weak narrow spiral riblets. Axial sculpture limited to nodules and growth lines.
Aperture narrow, oval or irregularly shaped, con-stricted posteriorly, with narrow parietal callus, gradually passing into siphonal canal. Anal sinus judging from growth lines, broad, medium-deep, deepest point on center of median keel. Teleoconch flesh-coloured, axially striped with irregularly altering darker and lighter zones.
Radula with only marginal teeth. Marginal teeth of modifíed duplex type, major limb pointed, with sharp anterior edge and thickened posterior edge that receives the accessory limb. Accessory limb bipartite, divided by deep longitudinal furrow along most of its length in two lobes
Remarks. The new genus has strong similarity to species of the genus Lucerapex Wenz, 1943 (Turridae) and the type species of the new genus, P. molengraaffi was attributed to Lucerapex by Powell [1964] and later Sysoev [1996]. The difference is that in species of Pagodaturris the tips of the nodules on median peripheral keel are attenuated and usually directed adapically, while in Lucerapex they are more rounded. Nevertheless this difference is very subtle. Both genera differ in morphology of the marginal radular teeth, which in Lucerapex are dúplex, typical of Turridae, while in Pagodaturris the teeth are tripartite, with accessory limb clearly subdivided in two lobes longitudinally, somewhat similar to the tripartite marginal teeth found in Makiyamaia Kuroda in MacNeil, 1961. Both genera Pagodaturris and Makiyamaia are early offshoots of Clavatulidae in the upcoming exon-capture-based phylogeny [Abdelkrim et al., 2018].
Etymology. The name reflects the similarity of the outline of the spire of the species due to attenuated and elevated tips of nodules similar to roof corners in pagoda buildings.
Genus composition: in addition to the type species, Pagodaturris molengraaffi, we attribute to the genus on the basis of conchological and radular similarities as well as molecular data Pagodaturris philippinensis gen. et sp. nov. Only two samples of Pagodaturris, one for each species P. molengraaffi and P. philippinensis, have been sequenced for the COI gene so far, and they are sister lineages in the COI tree. One more new species still unsequenced is represented in our material by a single specimen, in shell and radular characters very similar to the species mentioned above. In the absence of molecular data we abstain from description. Another species, that we attribute conditionally to Pagodaturris, is Lucerapex cascaría regula Iredale, 19 from off Sydney in 110 fms. The holotype is conchologically similar to the other species of Pagodaturris.