« Shell small to medium sized, fusiform, elongate-fusiform or turriform, usually with high spire and welldeveloped siphonal canal. Suture distinct, impressed or canaliculated. Sculpture dominated by axial elements from rounded, widely set folds to dense and sharp ribs. Axials may be lacking or overridden by spiral elements on the adult whorls, but they are always well pronounced on earlier teleoconch whorls. Aperture ranging from very narrow slit-shaped to wide. Inner aperture lip usually with three or four columellar folds, subequal or (in most cases) adapical the strongest. Protoconch glossy, with no sculpture, usually multispiral, narrowly conical, or rarely paucispiral bulbous. Operculum absent (except in Ceratoxancus and Latiromitra) » – Fedosov, Puillandre, Herrmann, Dgebuadze & Bouchet: “Phylogeny, systematics, and evolution of the family Costellariidae (Gastropoda: Neogastropoda)”, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society vol.579, London 2017, p.562.
 

« Shell small, fusiform to broadly fusiform or ovate, last adult whorl 64-74% of shell height. Protoconch multispiral, narrowly conical, with three or more glossy whorls. Suture distinct, impressed. Sculpture of dense, rounded, axial ribs on early spire whorls (sometimes absent), turning into broad and low folds on last teleoconch whorls; spiral sculpture of fine regular grooves, pronounced in interstices between axials. Shell base sculptured with several broad and flattenned, somewhat gemmate, spiral cords. Siphonal canal short or very short, stout, bearing several strong oblique cords. Aperture narrow, elongate, its outer lip lirate within. Inner apertural lip with three or four strong columellar folds, adapicalmost fold strongest. » – op. cit. p.597. Colour intense, with, in addition to any other occasional radial pattern, always a paler spiral, especially on the body whorl.
 

« Unequally fusiform; the spire longer than the aperture; body-whorl slightly ventricose, but suddenly contracted near the base; internal striae distinct; whorls convex, rarely angulated; the ribs reaching to the suture. » – W. Swainson: A treatise on malacology or shells and shell-fish, London 1840, p. 320 about the genus Costellaria, synonym of Vexillum. There is only one species in Mediterranean that matches the description of the genuis, but its longitudinal ribbing is weak and randomly zigzagging.