It is a species easily recognizable from its congenerous ones since it has an outline oval in form, with an aperture large and elongated on the upper part where it makes a small sinus. Its sculpture is variable and it is made by spiral ridges of uniform sizes and by axial ribs changing in the solidity, so that it exists a variant dajerleini (Monterosato, 1889 - Alboran Sea -) with rather prominent axial ribs and a more inflated aspect.
Uniform milk white in colour. The measures can reach even 5-6 mm in height.

Shell plump, with markedly cyrtoconoid outline, short spire and large last whorl. Surface, except on base of last whorl, marked by oblong reticulation, elongated along the whorls. Aperture rather narrow, pointed adapically and with peristome everted basally. Umbilicus absent. Cream.
The shell is semitransparent and has 5-6 moderately swollen whorls, the sutures between which, in profile, lie at the base of V-shaped excavations. There are 15-17 spiral ridges on the last whorl, 7-9 on the penult, then 5-6, 2-3. The costae are prosocline and more variable in number: 16-22 or more on the last whorl, 13-18 on the penult, then 12-17, 8-15. They die out on the last whorl before reaching the base. The aperture is much narrower adapically than in the other Alvania species and the outer lip shows a bay near its origin. The apex is sometimes orange yellow. Up to 6 mm high, 4mm broad; last whorl occupies three quarters of the shell height, the aperture half.
Within the region covered here A. lactea is found alive only in the Channel Islands, although dead shells have been recorded from further north. It lives amongst algae and under stones at L.W.S.T. and below. Abroad it extends south to Morocco and the Mediterranean.
The organization of the body of this animal and its mode of feeding are like those of other species in the genus; so probably is its mode of reproduc¬tion, but this is unknown.

Alvania lactea can be recognised by the large, ovate shell with a tall pointed aperture.

Distribution: it is found all over the Mediterranean but never common.
Habitat: it lives in low depths, in muddy-detrital bottoms.

Southern Great Britain and along the European coasts southwards, to and into the Mediterranean Depth range intertidal to a few meters depth. Intertidal to a few meters depth, under deeply buried rocks, often in groups of several specimens just at the border to anoxic.