This smallish chiton has a thick fleshy girdle with pearly rounded scales, and relatively little sculpturing on the valves. Its colour and pattern can be variable, but can be easily defined as a yellowish to greenish brown, with white patches and varying amounts of orange and blue colouration. It usually has alternating dark and light spots on the edge, near the sutures between the valves. It can also occasionally be found with large dark patches, sometimes colouring the pleural areas of one or two valves, sometimes along the jugum, or sometimes covering almost the entire shell. This species can be difficult to distinguish from other ischnochitons such as I. virgatus, I. smaragdinus, I. australis and some forms of I. elongatus, but the large pearly girdle scales and specific colouration described can be used to ID this species with practice.
