Iceland & northern Norway to Biafra Bight and Mediterranean, Greenland to Florida, Bermuda. Intertidal grounds down to continental shelf and upper slope, often in association with some lamellibranchs such as Scallops, Queenies or Horse-Mussels, more or less permanently settled along their margins, searching for food inside the valves (kleptovore behaviour); sometimes they are found on Turritella communis, sometimes on stones.

« Patella. Shell complete [no holes as in Fussirellids], tapered, pointed and striated; apex hooked. » – Linné: Systema naturae vol. I, page 782, item 667 in the 10ht edition. Sometimes erroneously writen “hungaricus”.

« The shell is rather thin and semipellucid, when full grown, of the size of a walnut; but small ones, of the size of filberds [hazelnuts], are most commonly met with. It is covered with an epidermis or cuticle, especially on the margins, a thin and tough skin set with a pile of short, thick, brown, silky filaments. » – E. M. da Costa: Historia naturalis testaceorum Britanniae, London 1778, p.12.

« The shape is conic, very elevated or copped; the base or aperture is round; and the margins are not quite level, being always somewhat ragged or uneven. The vertex turns spirally, and falls very low backwards, whereby the shell is so greatly fore-shortened on the side it hangs over, that it is near perpendicular, and only about 3/8 of an inch in length, while the other side is so lenghtened as to measure near two inches. » – op. cit. p.13.