Shell very small (up to 0.9 mm in diameter), hypertrophic, rounded in profile, fragile, glossy and uniformly brown. Protoconch of ¾ whorl (according to method by Verduin, 1977; equivalent to 1 whorl after Gofas & Waren, 1998) and 180 mu in diameter, with a rough surface at high magnification. Teleoconch with 1 or a little less smooth whorls with numerous and conspicuous growth lines. Aperture oval-rounded, except for a somewhat concave columellar edge. Head-foot white with two flat, wide and short cephalic tentacles. Operculum paucispiral, oval and transparent, coiling counterclokwise as seen from its outer surface. Radular ribbon very short, with a single row of a few solid triangular teeth; we did not find any lateral plate.

Retrotortina cuniculus Barnard. 1969 has a shell with a slight but distinct keel and varicoid growth-lines, the periphery in dorsal view showing beyond the keel, and a diameter of 1.5 mm (Barnard, 1969).
Retrotortina fuscata from the Mediterranean and NE Atlantic is smaller (up to 0.75 mm. according to Gofas & Waren, 1998) than Retrotortina damara, has a straight columella and proportionally smaller aperture, less prominent in its abapical part.
Omalogyra atomus (Philippi, 1841), the type species of Omalogyra (see Bieler & Mikkelsen, 1998) has a planispiral or slightly hypertrophic shell, like that of all other known Atlantic species of Omalogyra (Aartsen, Menkhorst & Gittenberger, 1984; Palazzi. 1988; Castellanos, 1989; Rolan, 1991, 1992; Gofas & Waren, 1998). According to Gofas & Waren (1998) the radula of O. atomus has a central tooth very similar to that of Retrotortina. and a lateral plate (probably a reduced lateral tooth) on each side.
The only Omalogyra species recorded from South Africa is O. gemmulata Turton, 1932 (Barnard, 1963, 1974); this species is figured by Kensley (1973) and has evident prominences on both sides, abapical and adapical, and it seems to be a species of Orbitestella Iredale, 1917.

Type locality: 4.5 km S of Swakopmund, Namibia (22° 43' 37" S. 14° 31’ 44" E); on algae from intertidal rocky pools.

Retrotortina damara is here considered as the second known Atlantic species in the genus Retrotortina Chaster, 1896, since it has a hypertrophic, non planispiral shell flatted adapically and umbilicate abapically and lack radular lateral plates, according to the characteristics of the type species (Retrotortina fuscata Chaster, 1896) given by Gofas & Waren (1998).