This whitish shell shows four rows of spiny, pointed nodules with numerous smaller spines between.

Drupella cornus lays benthic egg capsules, which hatch into free-swimming planktonic veliger larvae [2] Drupella cornus is a predator of living coral, grazing on the coral tissue.

An abundance of this snail can cause significant destruction to the hard-coral cover on reefs.

[3] The snail is attracted to Montipora corals when these corals secrete montiporic acids[4] Drupella cornus commonly occurs on or under tabular corals of the genera Acropora and Montipora or on hard substrates in the lower intertidal zone and shallow sublittoral zone.

[7] This species is distributed in the Red Sea and in the Indian Ocean along Aldabra, Chagos, Kenya, Madagascar, the Mascarene Basin, Mozambique, Tanzania, KwaZuluNatal, Gulf of Thailand,[8] Japan,[9] and the Indo-Pacific.