TYPE SPECIES: Voluta nucleus Lamarck, 1811; by original designation; Recent, Australia and Japan. DISTRIBUTION: Two species are represented in the sub- tropical waters of the western Atlantic Ocean, six species and one subspecies in the Pacific Ocean, and four species in the Indian Ocean. Their bathymetric range is from the littoral to 73 fathoms. The locality of another species, planicostata Sowerby III, 1903, is unknown. Some species, such as Lyria mitraeformis (Lamarck, 1811), are very common; others, such as Lyria vegai Clench and Turner, 1967, are known only from a single specimen. DIAGNOSIS: Shells are small to large (25 to 145 mm in length), usually solid, and globose to elongate-fusiform. Protoconch is small to relatively large. It is smooth, turbinate, and globose or regularly coiled, with or without a short calcarella. Teleoconch has axial ribs on some or all of the whorls. Neither a single toothlike projection nor serrations are found inside the outer lip as in Enaeta. The columella has one to three strong anterior plaits followed posteriorly by weak lirae. Suture is indented or slightly channeled, not deeply channeled with coronated whorls as in Harpeola. Shoulder nodules are absent. Siphonal notch and fasciole are present. Where known, a horny operculum is present. A thin periostracum may or may not be present. REMARKS: Two species, Lyria lyraeformis (Swainson, 1821) and Lyria cloveriana Weaver, 1963, have a large protoconch with a short calcarella. Unfortunately, nothing is known of their soft anatomy or radulae. We are therefore leaving them provisionally in the genus Lyria pending further information.