Shell moderately large, ventricose, ovate, with more or less dis¬tinctly angled and nodulose whorls. Sculpture consisting of a row of nodules upon the angle of the shoulder, sometimes with a second row a little further down, a number of cinguli between the angle and the suture ; the upper whorls finely spirally striated ; from 6 to 8 shallow grooves on the base ; incremental lines distinct, reticulating the fine spiral striae of the upper whorls : the prominence of the sculpture is subject to great variation. Colour uniformly bay or pale dun, with bands of chestnut-brown wavy spots ; outer lip banded with purplish-brown upon the outer edge. Spire low, conoidal, sharply pointed, about one-fifth the height of the aperture. Protoconch small, globose, of 2,5 smooth and convex whorls. Whorls about 7, the last large and ventricose, angulate above, flatly convex below; base xounded. Suture impressed. Aperture large, indistinctly channelled above, with a sharply recurved short and open canal below. Outer lip rounded, quite smooth. Columella slightly oblique, with a number of small folds above, and 1 or 2 large plaits below. Inner lip spreading as a thick white and folded plate beyond the columella, leaving the triangular umbilicus wide open.
Diameter, 31 mm. ; height, 42 mm. : angle of spire, 102°. Dia¬meter, 60 mm. ; height, 87 mm. (very large specimen).
Hab.—North Island, and Martin's Bay in the South Island ; Hawke's Bay, in about 20 fathoms : Kermadec Islands. Found also in Australia and Tasmania, &c.
Remarks.—Distinguished from the species in being thinner, more inflated, with a shorter spire, more or less distinctly noduled, and spirally sulcate above and on the base.
Fossil in the Pliocene.