The shell is small (maximum length 13 mm) and biconic. The spire is high, consisting of a keeled protoconch of one and one-half nuclear whorls and four or five rounded postnuclear whorls. The suture is impressed and undulate. The body whorl is of moderate size, fusoid, and strongly constricted above the canal. The aperture is small, emarginate, and subovate, the posterior margin flattened; the anal sulcus is narrow and rather shallow, and is extended posteriorly into a brief spout. The outer apertural lip is thin and finely, marginally serrate; its inner surface bears five denticles, four moderately weak; only the second from the posterior end is prominent. The columellar lip is entirely adherent and bears two weak, plaitlike ridges, formed by the impression of two rows of pustules from the outer surface of the previous whorl on the columellar surface. The siphonal canal is moderate in length, open, and bent to the left.
The body whorl bears eight low varices, extending from the suture to the tip of the siphonal canal. Additional axial sculpture consists of numerous fine, undulate lamellae, these most apparent between the spiral cords. Spiral sculpture consists of eight major cords, six on the body and two weaker ones on the canal. Where the major cords intersect the varices, moderately prominent, sharp-crested nodules are formed.
Shell color is white, with three spiral brown bands, one on the shoulder, one medial on the body, and one at the base of the body. The crests of the nodules on the body are suffused with rosy pink, as is the entire apertural margin and the siphonal canal. The denticles on the outer apertural lip are white.
Caribbean: Bahamas to Hispaniola, St. Thomas, and Antigua.

Distribution: Texas; Bahamas; West Indies. Size: 15 mm .
Description: Color purplish-brown with an orangish-white band anterior to the suture and 2 narrow bands on body whorl, aperture rose-colored; shape conic; sculpture of rounded axial ridges, crossed by spiral cords and threads, producing nodules; protoconch somewhat flattened; aperture narrow with a short siphonal canal and an abrupt anal canal; inner area of outer lip with distinct plicae. Habitat: Under rocks in sand and common in beach drift. Depth range 1 to 18 m (3 to 60 ft).
Remarks: Dredged offshore specimens have a pale white to reddish-brown coloration with no color bands. See Ode and Speers (1969d); Vokes and Houart (1986).