Alvania punctura
Shell of Alvania punctura (specimen at the Natural History Museum, Rotterdam)
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Mollusca
Class:	Gastropoda
Subclass:	Caenogastropoda
Order:	Littorinimorpha
Superfamily:	Rissooidea
Family:	Rissoidae
Genus:	Alvania
Species:	A. punctura
Binomial name
Alvania punctura (Montagu, 1803)[1]
Synonyms[2]
Alvania puncturata Locard, 1886 (unjustified emendation) Arsenia punctura (Montagu, 1803) superseded combination Alvania (Arsenia) punctura Montagu, 1803 Rissoa punctura (Montagu, 1803) Rissoa punctura var. diversa Jeffreys, 1867 · Turbo punctura Montagu, 1803 Turritella dorvilleana Leach, 1852 junior subjective synonym

Alvania punctura is a species of small sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk or micromollusk in the family Rissoidae.^[2]

The length of the shell attains 3 mm.

(Original description) The very glossy shell has rounded whorls, rather taper in shape, and finely reticulated. The colour of the shell is transparent yellowish-white. The aperture is sub-orbicular and has a thin lip. The ridges on the body whorl do not extend over the outer lip. The shell has a small umbilical chink. The length of the shell is the tenth of an inch. Its breadth one third its length. ^[3]

This species occurs in the Eastern Atlantic, from Norway to the Strait of Gibraltar; intertidal to ca. 100 m depth; rare and rather local in the Western Mediterranean (Corsica, Greece) in 50-200 m. Gorringe Ridge and Ampère Seamount, rare in 265-320 m. It is absent from Baltic Sea and the eastern basin of the English Channel. ^[2]

Fossils have been found in Pleistocene strata on Sicily, Italy.

• Locard, A. (1886). Prodrome de malacologie française. Catalogue général des mollusques vivants de France. Mollusques marins. Lyon: H. Georg & Paris: Baillière. x + 778 pp
• Jeffreys, J. G. (1862-1869). British conchology. Vol. 1: pp. cxiv + 341 (1862). Vol. 2: pp. 479 (1864). Vol. 3: pp. 394 (1865). Vol. 4: pp. 487 (1867). Vol. 5: pp. 259 (1869). London, van Voorst.
• Leach, W. E. (1852). Molluscorum Britanniae Synopsis. A synopsis of the Mollusca of Great Britain arranged according to their natural affinities and anatomical structure. Van Voorst, London, viii + 376 pp. (edited posthumously by J. E. Gray).
• Gofas, S.; Le Renard, J.; Bouchet, P. (2001). Mollusca. in: Costello, M.J. et al. (eds), European Register of Marine Species: a check-list of the marine species in Europe and a bibliography of guides to their identification. Patrimoines Naturels. 50: 180-213.
• Gofas, S.; Warén A. (1982). Taxonomie de quelque espèces du genre Alvania (Mollusca, Gastropoda) des côtes ibériques et marocaines. Bollettino Malacologico. 18(1-4): 1-16
• Thanasis Manousis, The Marine Mollusca of Greece: an up-to-date, systematic catalogue, documented with bibliographic and pictorial references
• Glibert, M. (1962). Les Mesogastropoda fossiles du Cénozoïque étranger des collections de l'Institut Royal des Sciences Naturelles de Belgique. Première partie. Cyclophoridae à Stiliferidae (inclus). Institut Royal des Sciences naturelles de Belgiques, Mémoires. Deuxième série. 69: 1-305

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