Sharp reddish spines of intermediate and uniform length, with a pale test. Lives on the substrate (rather than in the kelp canopy) and covers itself with small pieces of algae or debris. Easily confused with Salmaciella oligopora, which has slightly longer, banded spines, but is found on sand and silt bottoms rather than reef, and Pseudoboletia indiana which has a more dense covering of slightly shorter (white) spines.

• IUCN Threat Status: Vulnerable
• Occurrence: Frequent (11% of sites)
  Occurrence describes how often the species is found on surveys within its distribution. It is calculated as the % of reef sites surveyed by RLS divers across all the ecoregions in which the species has been observed
• Abundance: Few (2 per transect)
  Abundance is calculated as the average number of individuals recorded per RLS transect, where present.