This genus, formerly thought to be limited to the upper Tertiary of New Zealand and Australia but reaching Recent times in New Zealand, is now shown to have a very considerable Indo-Pacific Recent range as well.
As shown by the Recent Comitas onokeana vivens Dell, 1956, from the Chatham Rise, a near relative of the Miocene type of the genus, the operculum is leaf-shaped with a terminal nu¬cleus and the radula is of modified wish-bone type, similar to that of most Turrinae. True Turricula has a wish-bone type radula also, but the operculum is clavatulid, i.e. with a medio-lateral nucleus.
Once more that very unsatisfactory feature, the operculum, has to be invoked to separate Turricula from Comitas. Most Comitas are distin¬guishable by their elongately-fusiform shells which have long fold-like axials, very slight sub-margining of the suture, and a two-whorled smooth protoconch, usually carinate or sub-carinate over the last whorl.
Opercular features are not known for fossils, and a large number of Recent species have been described without knowledge of either the protoconch or the operculum. Where such are obviously turriculid but lack the evidence of the operculum or other diagnostic criteria, they are provisionally located, sensa lato, in the former genus.
The external features of the animal of onokeana vivens are similar to those of Turricula javana. Both have stubby cephalic tentacles, ledged on the outer side, with an eye in javana but no trace of ledge or eye in Comitas onokeana vivens. I am unable to determine if other species of Comitas are blind also; galatheae, the only other species examined, although from shallower water, has well developed eyes.
The only animal of onokeana vivens available, a male, has a large extremely long penis, tapered gradually to a sharp extremity. By comparison the male organ in Turris babylonia is moderately long, broad but laterally compressed, leaf-shaped, with a more rapidly tapered extremity, and the cephalic tentacles are long and slender, and strongly ledged, with very distinct eyes.
The genus Comitas has a very wide distribution in the Inclo-Pacific, ranging from South Africa to Japan and southward through Australian waters to southern New Zealand. In general it is a cold water genus, and it must be noted that the equatorial occurrences are all from deep water basins which receive a strong inflow of cold water that originates in the Antarctic.
Fossil occurrences of the genus date back to the upper Eocene of South Australia, probably the Eocene of Pakistan, and the Otaian, lower Miocene of New Zealand.

Shell moderately large to very large, up to 95 mm., elongate-fusiform, with a tall spire
and moderately long straight to slightly flexed, unnotched anterior canal. Protoconch papillate, of two smooth whorls, carinate or subcarinate over the last whorl. Adult sculpture of long fold-like axials, crossed by dense spiral lirae. Suture submargined by a very weak fold at most. Sinus moderately deep, rather broadly
U-shaped, on the shoulder slope, but nearer to the periphery than to the suture. Operculum with a terminal nucleus. Radula of "wishbone"-type, paired marginals but with the distal limb detached, as in Turricula. The animals of two deep water species have been examined, in one, Comitas onokeana vivens, a New Zealand species from 260 fathoms, it is blind, but a new species from a similar depth, off the Aru Islands, has well developed eyes, stepped midway on the outer edge of short broad-based cephalic tentacles.
Unless the opercular and nuclear characters are known it is aften difficult to distinguish between Turricula and Comitas, except for a general observation that in the latter, the adult sculpture tends to consist of long fold-like axials, crossed by a surface sculpture of closely spaced rather weak spiral lirations or striations.
In Turricula the adult sculpture is mostly a combination of strong axials and spirals, with the former relatively short, aften resulting in peripheral nodulation.
Range — typically New Zealand, upper Oligocene to Recent, Eocene to Miocene of southern Australia and Tasmania, Miocene of Java, Miocene and Pliocene of Japan and Okinawa, and the deeper waters of the Indo-Pacific from South Africa to Japan.
In general ferms, Turricula inhabits the shallow warm waters of the Indo-Pacific, and Comitas, the deeper and cooler waters of approximately the same area and southward to Australia and New Zealand.