Shell minute, obtusely conical, solid. Sculptured with heavy spiral keels. Whorls 5,5, including a low convex protoconch, not clearly marked off from the post-nuclear whorls. Apex of protoconch smooth, but two spiral keels commence after the first half-whorl and continue over the first post-nuclear whorl, but increase to three on second and four on the penultimate. On the body whorl there are, in addition, three spiral keels on the base. The keels are prominent and rounded, and the interspaces are a little less than the width of these keels. Spire twice height of aperture. Aperture small, almost circular. Peristome continuous, edge thin, neither reflected nor variced, but gradually thickened within. There is no umbilical cavity. Colour buff, tip of spire tinged with reddish brown.
Height 1,5 mm.; diameter 0,8 mm. (Holotype).
Habitat: Off Three Kings Islands. St. 933, 260 m.
In spite of the spiral keels, this species is not a Lironoba, for the apertural details are typical of those of Estea, which are quite distinctive. Certainly no other Estea has such prominent carinate sculpture, but a tendency towards heavy spiral ornament is shown by the New Zealand Pliocene species E. semisulcata (Hutton). Furthermore I have recently found semisulcata to be a still-living species, occurring in from 6 to 10 fathoms off the Great Barrier Island and off the Little Barrier Island in 20 fathoms.