The shape is more or less oval, the dorsum surface is smooth and shiny, the basic color is whitish, yellowish or greenish, with small brown spots all over, becoming larger on the sides.

The subspecies Naria turdus dilatata usually bears a large irregular patch on the dorsum.

The base is white or pale pink, sometimes with a small brown mark in the middle.

In the living cowries the mantle is yellowish or beige, with long tree-shaped brown papillae.

The thrush cowry is distributed in the Red Sea, in the Gulf of Oman and in the North West of the Indian Ocean, along Pakistan, India, in the East Africa (Comores, Eritrea, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, Oman, Somalia, Tanzania), in the East Coast of South Africa and - as a non-indigenous species - in European waters and in the Mediterranean Sea (Lampedusa, Israel, Djerba Island in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt), where it has been introduced through the Suez Canal.