The shape is usually pear-shaped, the dorsum surface is smooth and shiny and may be pale or dark brown, with several small white spots.

The margins and the extremities are clearer, while the base is generally white, with a wide sinuous aperture and long labial teeth.

The juvenile forms have two-three clearer trasversal bands on the shell dorsum.

In the living cowries the mantle is grey-brown and almost transparent, with long whitish tree-shaped papillae.

This species is distributed in the Red Sea and in the Indian Ocean along Aldabra, Chagos, the Comores, Kenya, Madagascar, the Mascarene Basin, Mauritius, Mozambique, Réunion, the Seychelles, Somalia and Tanzania and also along Jeju island, Philippines, Palau Islands, Samoa Islands, Polynesia, Hawaii and Vietnam.