As Epitonium perplexum
Length, 20 mm; diameter, 8 mm. Shell: elongate-conic, thin; with a basal disk; not umbilicate; axial costae sharp and hooked; white, sometimes banded with brown. Spire: protoconch of three and one-half conical whorls; teleoconch of nine to twelve rapidly enlarging, convex whorls; suture deeply impressed. Sculpture: nine to ten compressed, sharp, hooked, axially striate costae ascending the spire obliquely and impressed at the suture (costae smooth in beachworn shells); interspaces between the costae smooth: Aperture: abbreviately oval, outer lip reflected. Color: white, often with a dark brown band below the suture, occasionally entirely brown.
These epitonids are common in shallow water in tide pools, and on reefs; shells are common in beach drift. Thaanum (MS) noted that specimens were extremely abundant during the last week in February and the first week in March, 1914.
E. perplexum was described from Reunion; it has also been reported from New South Wales (Kerslake, 1968), southern Japan, and the Marshall Islands (Ladd, 1972).