« Turbo with a smooth, glossy, sub-pellucid, white shell, with six rather slender spires terminating in an obtuse apex; the volutions are nearly flat, defined only by a fine, separating line; aperture sub-oval, contrasted a little to an angle at the upper part; outer lip even; inner lip thickened, and furnished with a single tooth-like fold.  » – G. Montagu: Testacea Britannica, London 1803, p.325. In addition: whorls minimally convex; protoconch of type A.

« This species must not be confounded for Turbo unidentatus, which is vastly thicker and stronger, much broader at the base in proportion to its length, more tumid in the volutions, and larger in the aperture. It is more the shape of Helix polita, but is neither so finely pointed, nor is the aperture so long, and is at once distinguished from that shell by its tooth-like plication. » – Ibid. – Spanish form, more commonly found in Alborán Sea, characterized by a more obtuse summit. In tide pool, Leucate, Occitania, S. France. 1,9mm.

« It has the same faculty as many other of the pectinibranchous gasteropods of swimming on its back, and […] it has occasionally the habit of walking with its eyes retracted within the shell, through which they are distinctly seen. » – J. G. Jeffreys: “On the recent species of Odostomia”, The Annals and magazine of natural history ser. II, vol. II, London 1848, p.340.