Shell. Spindle-shaped, opaque, not glossy, with a thin periostracum giving a slightly hairy appearance. The tall spire (apical angle C. 40°) has a blunt point and is a little cyrtoconoid apically. There are 7 - 8 rather tumid whorls which meet at deep sutures, a little incised, placed well below the periphery of the upper whorl. They are made a little angulated in profile by the most adapical of the enlarged peripheral spiral ridges. The last whorl runs smoothly into the siphonal canal. The ornament consists of growth lines and spiral ridges. The former arc numerous and arc prosocline at the adapical sutures, becoming orthocline or slightly opisthocline as they cross a whorl. They are enlarged at more or less regular intervals, cross the spiral ridges and produce thus a fine reticulation of the surface, which is elongated axially. The spiral ridges are undulate in section and narrower than the intervening spaces. The most apical whorls (protoconch) show none, the next 3 or so show 4 - 6 spirals each; here they arc of equal size. The penultimate few whorls have about 10 ridges of which a peripheral group of 3 or 4 are more prominent and more widely spaced. The last whorl has 30 - 40 in all, those on the base regular in size. The number of ridges varies, depending on the extent to which minor ones are developed between major ones. The periostracal hairs lie along the sumits of the ridges. The protoconch has 1.25 - 1.5 whorls, 1750 -2500 µm in diameter, apparently smooth and lying in a flat coil.
Aperture. A rather broad oval, tapering more abruptly at its adapical end than basally to give an angle of 90° between inner and outer lips. The latter arises approximately at right angles to the surface of the last whorl level with the most abapical enlarged spiral, and curves, rather tightly at first, less later, and often with a peripheral flattening, to the origin of the siphonal canal, where it is inflected. It is a little out-turned throughout its course and exhibits an anal sinus. The columella is gently curved, the lip here and in the parietal region everted and closely applied to the whorl so that there is no umbilical groove and the ornament is completely masked. The lip shows some fine longitudinal folding and is papillose. The siphonal canal bends left of the continuation of the long axis of the aperture in its first part, but curves so that its lip comes to lie nearly in the shell axis; it is bent back a little from the apertural plane and is widely open. There are some spiral folds in the throat under the enlarged spiral ridges.
Colour. White, sometimes with a slight pink tinge, often more obvious in the throat than externally.
Size up to 80 -90 x 40-45 mm. Last whorl = c. 70% of total shell height; aperture - c. 50% of total height. Animal. The head ends in a transverse fold with two rather short tentacles arising from it, close together. Each narrows distally to the eye, set about halfway along its length. The mouth ( = opening of a proboscis sac) lies under the fold. The mantle skirl has a plain edge with a siphon on the left extending beyond the siphonal canal as the animal creeps. Males have a penis.
The fool has a curved, double anterior edge and a roundly-pointed posterior lip.
Colour. Cream-pinkish.
Geographical distribution. Apparently widespread in the north-castern Atlantic, but northern rather than southern in distribution. It is absent from the English Channel, southern pans of the North Sea and Irish Sea, but has been found off other parts of Ireland, the west coast of Scotland, the Dogger Bank, and northwards to north Norway and Faeroes. Absent from Skagcrrak and Kattegat. It is not a common animal.
Habitat. On soft bottoms from 140 - 250 m in coastal waters but to nearly 2000 m elsewhere.
Food, breeding and growth. The larva described by Friele (1882) under this name has been shown by Thorson to be that of Siphonorbis ebur.

Along the NE Atlantic continental shelves and upper slopes, from 56°0l N, 32°42 W, 1200 m (Jeffreys, 1877) (between Iceland and Greenland) to NW Norway (Sars, 1878) and southwards to 25°N (Locard, 1897). It is not known from the Mediterranean. In Norway it has been found from 90 m (Sars, 1878) down to 600 m on the continental slope (Friele & Grieg, 1901), but occurs deeper (1000 m) in the fjords (AW). Off North-West Africa it occurs in depths between 600 and 2000 m (Locard, 1897). The deepest occurrence is BIACORES stn 252, 47°35 N, 08°47 W, 2700 m, where empty but fresh shells were found.