Raphitoma purpurea

The length of the shell varies between 9 mm and 24 mm, its diameter between 4.9 mm and 9.5 mm. (Original description) The species shows a very rugose, fusiform and robust shell. It has a of a dark purple colour with sometimes a few spots or blotches of white. It contains nine or ten whorls, rounded, and tapering to an extremely fine, sharp apex. They contain nineteen or twenty ribs, running a little oblique to the right. They are crossed by numerous sharp, elevated ridges, which rise into angles upon the ribs, making the shell very rough, and giving it a cancellated appearance. The aperture is narrow, oval and terminates into a strait siphonal canal. The outer lip is thin. The margin is white, crenated by the striae. The columella striated transversely oblique to the end of the siphonal canal, and somewhat tuberculated. Inside it is purple, marked by the ribs. The whorls are usually well rounded, clathrate by narrow ribs and almost equally strong revolving ridges. The color of the shell is reddish or purplish brown, white-zoned below the middle of the body whorl, the zone distinct within the lip.

This species occurs in the Mediterranean Sea and in the Atlantic Ocean from Northern Europa, the Azores, the Canary Islands to Angola. Fossils were found in Upper Pliocene strata in Italy.