Shell rather small, 15-24 mm., elongate-fusiform, with an attenuated spire, 1,5 or more times the height of the aperture plus canal. The body-whorl is narrow, gradually contracted to a short, unnotched, spout-like anterior canal. Outer lip thin, without a varix. Sinus a weak broadly open chevron, its apex just above the weak shoulder angulation. Protoconch small, narrowly conical of about 3 ½ whorls, first two smooth, the remainder with spiral rows of tubercles. Adult sculpture of broadly rounded axial folds, which do not cross the shoulder slope and fade out at about the middle of the base. All post-embryonic whorls densely spirally striated. Colour varying from dull white to reddish-brown, the axials lighter coloured, Operculum apparently absent. Radula of marginals only, the individual teeth broad and flat, short and simple pointed, rising obliquely from a straight base.
The animal is of a general white or yellowish-white hue, speckled with flaky yellowish dots. The tentacula are rather short, clavate at their tips, thickened by the connate eye pedicles for nearly two-thirds of their lengths, with the part on which the eyes are borne rather prominent and bulging.

Recent, Norway and Britain to the Mediterranean and West Africa, Pleistocene of Iceland, England, Italy and Sicily, and Pliocene of northern Italy.