The genus is restricted to the Antarctic region, with a known range extending over the Weddell, Enderby and Victoria quadrants. Only one species, the genotype, extends to as far north as the Antarctic Convergence.
The shell is very- thin and is covered with a pilose epidermis. Anterior canal truncated, deeplv notched, with a ridge-margined fasciole. Operculum disproportionately small for the size of the aperture, irregularly ovate, horny, excentric, with the nucleus at the anterior margin.
The radula is very uniform; it has a tricuspid central tooth with a broad excavated basal plate and a tricuspid lateral on either side of it. Specific differentiation is most clearly shown in the respective shapes of the central tooth. The tricuspid laterals have the central cusp weak and situated close along-side the inner cusp suggesting bifurcation of the inner of two original cusps. However, the three lateral cusps are now so stable a feature that Chlanidota is more naturally placed with the Buccinulinae than with the Cominellinae. In fact Chlanidota, Neobuccinum and the next genus, Pfefferia, may well represent a transitional stage between the short canalled Cominellids and the long canalled Buccinulids.
Reference to the Buccinidae is even less appropriate as shown by radula and opercular characters as well as from geographical considerations.