Shells small, trochoid, usually thick (excepted in the genus Granata Cotton), with a sculpture mainly spiral and nodulose to scaly; whorls convex or keeeled, suture marked; aperture round. Previously known as Chilodontidae but this name was preoccupied (Eigenmann, 1903) for a family of fishes.
 

Apex obtuse, protoconch sunken; whorls convex; aperture entire, with a thick labial varix in adult specimens; columella with a strong double tooth. « The differences between the species are in some cases small, and Beu and Climo (1974) cautioned that without more detailed comparative study, it is impossible to be certain whether each of these nominal taxa represents a genuinely distinct species, or whether there are fewer, more widespread and sculpturally variable ones… » – D. G. Herbert: “A Revision of the Chilodontidae (Gastropoda: Vetigastropoda: Seguenzioidea) of Southern Africa and the South-Western Indian Ocean”, African Invertebrates vol.53(2), Pietermaritzburg 2012, p.412.