Pterynotus phyllopterus: The shell of this recently rediscovered species is rather large (length about 80 mm) and trigonal. The spire is high, consisting of six or seven convex to barely subangulate postnuclear whorls and a protoconch of undetermined nature. The suture is indistinct. The body whorl is moderately large and trigonal. The aperture is smallish and lenticular, with a narrow, moderately deep anal sulcus, and the entire aperture is oriented out of the plane of the outer apertural lip; the inner apertural margin is sunken relative to the outer apertural margin. The outer apertural lip is broadly flaring, weakly erect, and thrown into a series of broadly spaced short points or cusps; the inner surface of the outer lip, almost completely exposed at the outer apertural margin, bears a series of eight prominent tubercles, these decreasing in size anteriorly. The columellar lip is adherent and thinly callused, barely detached and non erect at its anterior end. The siphonal canal is of moderate length, broad, barely open, and distally recurved.
The body whorl bears three broad, ruffled varices upswept posteriorly to fuse with the varix of the preceding whorl. The winglike flanges thus extend from the suture and from the fusion of the varix with a varix of a preceding whorl to the point near the tip of the canal at which the canal turns dorsally. Intervarical axial sculpture consists of two or three low ridges, these strongest at the shoulder margin and extending to about midway on the body. Spiral sculpture consists of a single weak cord on the shoulder, seven stronger cords on the body, and three strong cords on the canal, the cords corresponding to the dorsally upraised portions of the milled varical margin.
Shell color is orange-brown, with irregular whit-ish blotches. The leading edge of the varix is white, with a brown line running along the ventrally folded portions of the ruffled varix. The inner surface of the outer apertural lip is suffused with fleshy pinkish-orange; the tubercles on the inner surface of the outer lip are rosy pink to darker rosy red, grading to white at their inner ends. The remainder of the aperture is white.

The « Leafy Winged Murex » is a splendid muricid with outstanding wavy varices and colouration which makes it an extremely desirable collector's item. Native to the Lesser Antilles, it is an uncommon carnivorous and predatory gastropod inhabiting shallow water around -5~30m deep. Although little-varied in form it is extremely variable in colouration such as red, brown, yellow, purple, or white; and saturation of the colouration also differ between specimens. Its beautiful varices are very delicate and often broken in specimens taken from the wild but attempts at artificially raising specimens in controlled environment have been quite successful, producing and supplying specimens with perfect or near-perfect varices to the shell trade market. Typical shell length around 65mm., giant specimens are known to exceed 100mm.

Pterynotus phyllopterus: Known to us only from off Martinique, Windward Islands (Caribbean), in 30 m.