N. Norway to Gibraltar, Azores and Madeira to Sardinia Channel and Tyrrhenian Sea. Predator in the low circalittoral (90-220m in Sars, 1870) to bathyal depths (1850m in Dautzenberg & Fischer, 1896). Original taxon: Pleurotoma nivalis (“nivale” in Lovén’s work). The synonymy gives compsospira by Dautzenberg & Fischer, and a few others from Locard, 1897.
« Shell turreted, fusiform, white; whorls circa 9, densely covered with spirals, corrugated on all sides, weakly convex, posteriorly slightly concave, angled near the middle, where they bear oblique nodules produced by inconspicuous costae that are about 15 in the penultimate whorl, and progressively disappear in the last one; aperture oblong, whose height does not reach half of the total shell length; canal wide; labrum slightly protruding, sinus shallow, distant from the suture; tail short. » – S. L. Lovén: Index Molluscorum litora Scandinaviae occidentalia habitantium, Stockholm 1846, p.14.
« Shell turreted, fusiform, white; whorls circa 9, densely covered with spirals, corrugated on all sides, weakly convex, posteriorly slightly concave, angled near the middle, where they bear oblique nodules produced by inconspicuous costae that are about 15 in the penultimate whorl, and progressively disappear in the last one; aperture oblong, whose height does not reach half of the total shell length; canal wide; labrum slightly protruding, sinus shallow, distant from the suture; tail short. » – S. L. Lovén: Index Molluscorum litora Scandinaviae occidentalia habitantium, Stockholm 1846, p.14.
Above and below: 650m deep, Sardinia Channel. 31,3mm.
Original pictures provided by A. Nappo (IT).
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