Distorsio perdistorta is recognisable by its reasonably consistent white aperture (the parietal shield is partly pale to medium red-brown in some specimens in most populations), consistent stark white exterior, strongly excentric coiling with a large but evenly rounded bulge to the left of the aperture (in conventional apertural view), regularly cancellate teleoconch sculpture without the four grouped peripheral spiral cords of D. kurzi, D. habei, D. euconstricta and D. graceiellae. or the more closely spaced peripheral pair of cords of D. decipiens, its very straight anterior canal with a long, anteriorly decreasing row of nodules on the basal columellar ridge (similar to the ridges of D. kurzi. D. decipiens and D. habei) and its wide outer lip bearing narrow, long transverse ridges as in D. habei, but more consistently having a strongly out-curved right margin than in D. habei. The whole effect is of a humped but rather roundly oval, evenly reticulate shell, most specimens of which are plain white. The very long, black periostracal bristles of some specimens were illustrated by LEWIS (1972) and ABBOTT (1974).

Specimens of D. perdistorta have now been seen or have been recorded from off Natal. South Africa , off Madagascar , from the Philippine Islands (many in museums and private collections), from southern Japan, from the Loyalty Ridge and Norfolk Ridge, near New Caledonia (see above), from "near Oaxaca, West Mexico. 1987", from off Florida and in the Gulf of Mexico (LEWIS, 1972) and off southern Brazil (RlOS, 1985). in the eastern Atlantic off the Canary Islands and in the Gulf of Guinea. It appears likely that D. perdistorta occurs throughout the Indo-West Pacific province as well as throughout the warm-water Atlantic Ocean, in about 100 to 500 m. ROBBA et al. (1989: 77) recorded D. perdistorta as a Plio-Pleistocene fossil from Timor, but did not illustrate their material. Distorsio perdistorta has turned out to be an almost circumtropical species, so it is not surprising that it was collected at 9 localities around New Caledonia.