A beautiful species without any closely allied species; moderate in size with a general shape of this group; brightly dark salmon colour with white cloudy shades over it. Very thick, whorls 6.5 , apical portion decollated, moderately convex, with a distinct suture, somewhat shouldered in front of it; surface smooth, shining, engraved with in mosaic pattern with distant diverse narrow groovy striae, spiral and axial punctured pits in the spiral grooves are superficially fine and minute; arrangement of both grooves are somewhat similar, forming numerous square, subregular and flattish areas much like as a pavement, but they are subgranose on the earlier whorls; number of spiral striae 5 between the sutures, sometimes accompanied some minor intercalary ones, those axials on the last whorl may be count about 22; beautifully dye figures—over painted pattern of white colour are cloudy, without definite pattern, but somewhat triangularly, large and small; aperture narrow, outer lip blunt with serrately toothed margin, interior smooth; columella calloused, bearing 5 plicae, the foremost one is minute; fasciole distinct, subgranosely striated; anterior notch moderately wide. Alt. 38.2, diam. 12.7mm.

With a wonderful combination of triangular 'tent' pattern and cancellate sculpture, the unmistakable « Isao Taki Mitre » is one of the most exquisite mitrids in the world. Widely distributed in the Western Pacific ranging from Japan to New Zealand to as far east as Pitcairn Islands, its type locality is Hachijo-jima, Japan and most specimens appear to originate from either southern Japan or New Caledonia. Its beauty and the fact that it is a very scarce species makes it one of the most desired mitres of all, made famous by featuring in « World Seashells of Rarity and Beauty » (1991) depicting a shell from the R. Kawamura collection, as well as T.C. Lan's « The Classic Shells of the World » (1993). It is sometimes beached, albeit very rarely and usually in poor condition. A carnivorous and predatory gastropod presumably feeding on sipunculid worms, it inhabits sand or rubble bottoms of moderate depths around -20-100m. Typical shell length around 45mm., extremely large specimens may reach 65mm. It is named in honour of Dr. Isao Taki (1898-1961) who was an influencial malacologist and zoologist in Japan, along with his younger brother Dr. Iwao Taki (1901-1984).

Shell to 53.0 mm in length, fusiform-elongate, solid, teleoconch of ca. 9 subangulate whorls, protoconch unknown. Post-embryonic whorls with 3-4 granulose spiral cords, later whorls with finely incised spiral grooves which number 5-7 on the penultimate and 16-20 on the body whorl in addition to 5-7 oblique cords on the siphonal fasciole; spiral grooves are bisected by longitudinal grooves which form quadrate to rectangular, low beads which appear stepped in profile; on the last 2 whorls 2-3 rows of beads at the suture are narrow, laterally elongate and compressed. Aperture slightly longer than the spire, smooth within, outer lip thickened and bluntly crenulate, columella calloused and with 5 strong folds, siphonal fasciole straight. Whitish in color, sparsely or densely ornamented with orange, trigonal spots of varying size, aperture creamy-yellow.

This is a moderately wide mitrid (W/L = 0.35) with the spire about equal in length to the aperture (S/L = 0.47 to 0.53 for the illustrated specimens). The spire sides are nearly straight with about 7 teleoconch whorls that are slightly convex with a prominent suture. Sculpture consists of fairly wide, flat axial ribs crossed by spiral cords of nearly equal width producing square nodes at intersections. Presutural and subsutural cords are narrower. Some spiral cords have a spiral groove cutting them into unequal sections. The dorsal notch is prominent. The outer lip is convex, straighter centrally and curves at the anterior transition to the anterior canal. The columella has three significant, low spiral folds and has a moderately wide callus. The fasciole bulges convexly. The shell exterior color is white to cream with dense to slight coverage by large to small orange to orange-red spots that often are triangular in shape. The aperture is a lighter orange to cream-orange.
The holotype is in the National Science Museum, Tokyo and the type locality is Hachijo-Jima, Izu-shiehito Islands, Japan.

Japan. Hachijo-jima, one of the Izu-shichito Islands.
This beautiful mitre shell does not come from a very deep sea, and has been known frequently with beached specimens from several localities, such as Kii-Nagashima, Muroto-zaki, Tosa, Amami and Ryukyu groups and also from Formosa, but everywhere the specimens are generally few in number

Finding Place: Zampa-misaki (Bolo Point), Okinawa Island, Japan

Range - From Japan to the Kermadec and Pitcairn Islands. Originally described from Japan, this species has been in recent years recorded from widely distributed Pacific localities. In sand and coral rubble, to a depth of 65 fms.