Arctic to N. Carolina, Greenland to S. Morocco, lusitanian seamounts to Mediterranean, Mid-Atlantric Ridge. This is a cold water predator, which lives deeper in the south (bathyal), where it often belongs to cold-water coral communities, than in the north (subtidal). Found as deep as 4190m. Known as fossil only in the bathyal lower Messinian, late Miocene, of Carboneras, Almería, Andalucia, S. Spain. The larva is used to swimming in the surface waters (Bouchet & Warén, 1985).
Original taxon: Buccinum acute-costatum.
500m deep, on white coral bottom, off Fiumicino, Lazio, W. Italy. 5,5mm.
400m deep, Capraia island, Archipelago Toscano, W. Italy. 7,5mm.
« Testa oblongo-ovata, subfusiformis, acuta. Afractus 8, convexi, supremi 4 laevissimi, reliqui striis transversis obsoletis (circa 8), et costis longitudinalibus ornati. Costae elevatae, praesertim superne ad suturam, angustae, ab interstiis ter quaterve latioribus bene distinctae, in ultimo anfractu fere usque ad caudam productae; cauda distincta, longiuscula, ecostata, distincte transversim striata, postice vix excisa […] Apertura ovato-oblonga, superne angulata, basi sensim in canalem producta. Labrum, in utroque specimine laesum, simplex fuisse videtur; labium vix distinctum est. » – R. A. Philippi: Enumeratio molluscorum Siciliae… pars. II, Berlin 1836-1844, via BHL.
Protoconch granulose (Negri & Corselli, 2016) « bearing a very fine reticulate pattern of oblique threads » (WoRMS). General colour « whitish in deeper water, with brown flames on specimens collected on the upper part of seamounts. »
1000m deep, Capo Teulada. 7,2mm.