The shell is of moderate size (maximum length 50 mm) and stoutly fusiform. The spire is high, consisting of seven or eight strongly shouldered or tabulate postnuclear whorls and a protoconch of undetermined nature. The suture is distinct. The body whorl is moderately large and fusoid. The aperture is ovate, with a very weak to indistinct anal sulcus. The outer apertural lip is erect and marginally crenulate; its inner surface bears six or seven weak to moderately strong denticles. The columellar lip is adherent above, detached and erect below. The siphonal canal is moderately short, broad, closed, and dorsally recurved.
The body whorl bears three to nine varices. In some specimens every second varix is reduced to a secondary axial ridge. The entire shell surface is scabrously laminate, with vaulted scales of varying size over the spiral elements. Spiral sculpture consists of six to eight strongly raised primary cords, these generally alternating with secondary and tertiary cords. Where the spiral elements intersect the axial sculpture, they are elevated into short, open, scalelike spines.
Shell color is pale yellow-ochre tinged with brown. The aperture is white.
As in the genus as a whole, this species shows a great deal of variability in its shell morphology. The numerous variants that have been named can, however, be shown to intergrade.

Habitat: it lives on several kinds of bottoms: from rocky to dctrital-muddy ones, of the infralittoral and circalittoral zones. Distribution: relatively common all over the Mediterranean.
Notes: it is a really polymorphe species so that in literature there are many taxa considered as its synonyms and there is a very high number of subspecies (mainly set up by Settepassi, 1970) and varieties (mainly set up by Dautzenberg, 1887). Sculpture made by about ten strong axial ribs crossed by as many as conspicuous spiral cords originating spiny varices adorned with lamellae. Whorls result to be more or less angular, mouth oval in form, siphonal canal closed, external lip thickened. Apex sharp and protoconch almost smooth, yellowish in colour. The lamellate spines can be either quite developed and foliaceous (hanleyi) or shorter, or almost missing (tarentina). The last whorl height is typical and it makes the determination of juvenile specimens easier. It feeds on molluscs, mainly bivalves, that it pierces by its mouth apparatus. From dirty white with brown streaks, to uniform dark brown in colour. The adult specimens average measures are around 35-40 mm in height, but there were also found individuals quite more than 50 mm.

Shell up to 65 mm in length, with 1.25-1.5 protoconch whorls, and up to 6 or 7 teleoconch whorls. Protoconch small, smooth. Whorls rounded. Axial sculpture of last teleoconch whorl consisting of 3-11 (usually 3-7) low or high, rounded, occasionally strong varices. Other occasional axial sculpture consists of a single, low, nodose intervarical rib. Spiral sculpture of 5, low or high, weak or strong, smooth or squamous primary cords, and 1-3 secondary and tertiary cords and some threads between each pair of primary cords. Aperture moderately large, ovate. Outer lip weakly crenulate, smooth within or with 6-8 weak denticles. Columellar lip narrow, smooth, adherent. Siphonal canal short, sealed. Color variable, white, light tan. brown, pale brown with darker colored spiral bands.

Shell. A tall angulated or turreted cone with a sharp apex, dull, opaque and solid in appearance. There are about 8 whorls, tumid, with deep but not excavated sutures which arc made wavy by the adapical ends of the costae. The ornament consists of spiral ridges and grooves, growth lines and costae. The spiral ridges are rounded in section and about as broad as the grooves between, though these are normally partially filled by a smaller ridge and still smaller ones lie in their intervening spaces. There are 8 or 9 large ridges on the body whorl and 2 or 3 on each whorl of the spire. Three ridges at the periphery are more prominent than the others, the most adapical lying a little away from the suture and largely responsible for the angulation of the whorls. Between it and the base the ridges steadily decrease in size, though the basal one, overlying the siphonal canal, is again larger. The costae are broad, V-shaped in section, and prosocline; the intervening grooves are also nearly V-shaped, the abapertural slope of one costa practically meeting the adapertural slope of the next. They may be asymmetrical in section, steep on the adapertural side. There are 7-8 on the last whorl, 8-9 on the penult and the number increases more or less regularly by 1 on each higher whorl. There is no definite relationship between the costae on one whorl and those on the next. The costae are highest at the level of the most conspicuous spiral ridge, decreasing above and below though usually reaching both suture and base. Where costae and spiral ridges cross blunt tuberosities are formed. Most shells exhibit a labial costa (varix) the adapertural face of which appears as a thickening of the outer lip and over which the spiral ornament is continued. The growth lines are fine marks, prosocline in direction, elaborated so as to create a delicate pattern over the whole surface though usually eroded from the summits of spiral ridges and ribs. At irregular intervals a growth line is raised from the shell surface, at positions occupied by spiral ridges, to form a small varix-like projection which leans towards the aperture and forms a small arch-like structure. If unworn these give the whole shell an imbricated appearance; if worn from the ridges this is confined to the grooves.
The protoconch is smooth, of c\ 2.5 whorls and measures e. 1 mm in diameter.
Aperture. An oval opening surrounded by a peristome which lies in a prosocline plane, the long axis of the oval lying at c. 10° to that of the spire. In most shells it is rounded above and pointed basally at the origin of the siphonal canal but in young shells, before outer and inner lips arc fully joined, the adapical end is pointed too. The outer lip is thin, projecting minimally beyond the base of the labial varix, its edge thrown into small folds and projecting points by the spiral ridges and grooves, or it may be so worn as not to project from the varix. It arises from the last whorl, more or less normal to the surface and below the periphery, level with the 3rd or 4th major spiral ridge. Its course as far as the 1st major ridge is straight, or nearly so, and it then curves to the origin of the siphonal canal. In nearly all shells this continues the long axis of the aperture though occasionally it bends a little to the right and always curves back from the plane of the peristome. In young shells it is open along its whole length, but gradually closes by a fusion of its edges starting at the apertural end and extending until only a small opening is left basally. The process seems slow and irregular and shells with partially open canals arc common. The columella is straight and the lip slightly or considerably everted so as to lie over the last whorl, leaving a minute umbilical opening about level with the origin of the siphonal canal. The inner lip expands over the last whorl, obliterating ornament; in old shells it shows a layered structure and expands to meet the outer lip. The throat is rather glossy and within the outer lip shows grooves separated by ridges corresponding, respectively, to the external spiral ridges and grooves, and often, especially in young shells, to the costae as well.
Colour. Yellowish white, often with some brown markings on the costae and spiral ridges.
Size. Up to 50 x 25 mm. Last whorl = 75% of total shell height (range 70-80%); aperture = 60% of total shell height (range 50-65%). Females arc a little larger than males.
Animal. The head is small, flattened, without a snout, the mouth (= opening of a proboscis sac) a small slit on the underside. It carries 2 diverging tentacles at its anterior border, each with an eye set about two thirds of its total length from the base; distal to the eye the tentacle is slender. The mantle edge is a little lobed, fitting the irregularities of the outer lip, and drawn out to a siphon on the left. This hardly projects from the siphonal canal as the animal creeps. Males carry a curved and dorsoventrally flattened penis attached to the floor of the mantle cavity behind the right tentacle. The vas deferens opens at its tip.
The foot is rather small, nearly straight anteriorly, where there is a median notch and a double edge, and broadly rounded behind. Every animal has a small pore in the mid-line of the sole a little behind the anterior end, the opening of the sac which contains the accessory boring organ. Females have, in addition, and a little more posteriorly, the opening of the ventral pedal gland.
Colour. Yellowish white with white speckles, darker yellow on the tentacles.
Geographical distribution. A southern species extending north from the Mediterranean, Madeira and the Azores to the British Isles. It occurs on Irish coasts, the south and west coasts of Britain, becoming absent in the north. It is also found in the southern parts of the North Sea. Despite two records from the Kattegat dating from last century it does not now appear to be found on Danish or Scandinavian coasts.
Habitat. This is predominantly a sublittoral animal found on stony bottoms to 150 m. In the warmer months of the year it also becomes intertidal, occurring under stones at LWST and sometimes higher. It avoids exposed places and is more tolerant of silt than Nucella.

Western Mediterranean basin to the British Isles.

The species is apparently uncommon in the eastern Mediterranean (Greece, South Cyprus, West Turkey), and relatively common elsewhere up to Gibraltar, and up to South Great Britain in the Atlantic. Also known from Madeira and the Azores. One specimen was collected alive at 100 m, off Tenerife, Canary Islands (Garcia-Talavera, 1974: 105). To my knowledge, it has not been recorded there anymore since then. It lives on rocky shores or mixed rocky and sandy environments (Finet et al. 1992: 62). Also on oyster and mussel beds. Living to 130 m depth.