This snail uses chemoreception[2] to locate its invertebrate prey, which is typically a sessile or encrusting organism that is unable to escape its pursuer.

[citation needed] This snail is endemic to the Atlantic coast of North America, from Nova Scotia to Nassau Sound in[5] in Florida.

It has been accidentally introduced with oyster spat to Northern Europe and to the West Coast of North America from California to Washington.

The animal is small, the foot scarcely covering the aperture, very little dilated at the front angles, cream-colored, margined with lemon color beneath, punctured with light drab above.

The head is scarcely protruded; tentaeula nearly united at origin; eyes black, at the outer upper third of tentacula, which third is a mere filament, are contractile.

The eggs of Urosalpinx cinerea are contained in small transparent membranous parchment-like vases, each of which is attached by an expanded foot to some solid substance, usually the under surface of an overhanging rock, a little above low-tide mark.

Occasionally a partially segmented egg or more advanced embryo becomes abortive and breaks up into separate cells, each of which remains alive for some time, and often swims actively by the motion of its cilia.

These cosmelae and the yolk of the aborted eggs are drawn into the digestive cavities of other embryos, but this method of furnishing the young with food is exceptional and accidental.

[5] Chloride and sodium, inorganic ions, are some of the major agents in the blood of marine and estuarine invertebrates, including the Atlantic oyster drill.

[10] Due to their ability of "drilling" into shells, the snail's activities can cost millions of dollars every single year.

...Settling upon a young bivalve, the oyster drill quickly bores a neat round hole through a valve, making expert use of its sandpaperlike radula.