The shell is of moderate size (maximum length 15 mm), fusiform, and somewhat flattened dorso-ventrally. The spire is high, consisting of two and one-half nuclear whorls and six or seven weakly convex postnuclear whorls. The suture is impressed. The body whorl is fusoid but somewhat truncate. The aperture is relatively small and ovate, with a shallow' anal sulcus. The outer apertural lip is marginally erect below' the shoulder margin, with crenulations reflecting the crests of the spiral sculptural elements; the inner surface of the outer lip is weakly lirate. The columellar lip is smooth. The siphonal canal is short, truncate, narrowly open, and distally recurved.
The spire whorls bear six strongly raised varices. On the body whorl the last varix and the one opposite it are more strongly developed, causing the remaining four varices, all of equal size, to appear weak. The varices are raised in buttresses and cross the shoulder to adhere to the preceding whorl. The growth lines are raised to form fine lamellae between the spiral cords. Spiral sculpture consists of six strongly raised, concave-sided cords on the body whorl, distributed from the shoulder margin to the base of the body. Between the body and the siphonal canal there is a broad, excavated gap in spiral sculpture, traversed by the axial elements (varices). The axial-growth lamellae are laterally flattened on each side of the base and at the crest of each cord, this imparting a bilaterally squamose appearance to the intersection of a lamella and a cord. The leading edge of each varix is moderately densely fimbriate.
Shell color is generally purple-gray or purple-brown, with varying proportions of creamy-white transverse banding; the varices and the aperture arc also predominantly creamy white. On mature, unworn specimens the entire shell is often covered by a translucent intritacalx.

Mazatlan, Mexico, to Panama and the Galapagos Islands.