Shell small in sizes, whorls really convex , sculpture made by about thirty thin axial little ribs crossing with about fifteen spiral little cords of the same solidity originating a series of small papillae and a finely reticulated surface.
Mouth roundish in form, lip thickened and externally denticulated. Brown greyish in colour pattern, sometimes with clearer flammulae. Protoconch made by 2.5-3 whorls dotted closely. A. punctura has a teleconch sculpture similar to A. parvula, A. oliverioi, A. halgassi and A. dianiensis but the respective protoconches are really different ones. Measures are around 2 mm.

Shell with sharply pointed spire; whorls tumid with deep sutures and a pattern of shallow square reticulation except on three most apical whorls. Aperture with labial varix, peristome everted at base. Umbilicus long and narrow. Cream with brown marks across whorls and sometimes a brown line along abapertural side of varix, which is white. Animal with right and left pallial tentacles, plus one metapodial.
There are six whorls. The spire is usually a little cyrtoconoid near the apex. The sculpture is markedly shallower than in most Alvania species. There are 12-15 spiral ridges on the last whorl, 5-8 on the penult, then 4-5, whilst the most apical have only spiral rows of fine tubercles. There are numerous prosocline costae (35-45 or so) on the last whorl, decreasing to 28-33 on more adapical ones. Costae decrease in height or vanish on the basal half of the last whorl. Brown marks usually lie across the whorls in three series, subsutural, peripheral, and basal, the last (and sometimes also the second) visible on the last whorl only. The umbilical region is also brown. Up to 3 mm high, about 2 mm broad; last whorl occupies about two thirds of shell height, aperture a little more than a third.
The general appearance of the body of this animal is as in the other Alvania species. Its flesh is cream with dark lines and yellow spots; behind each eye lies a red spot and the same colour appears under the operculum.
A. punctura occurs from the Mediterranean to north Norway. It is, with A. semistriata, the commonest species of the genus in British and Irish waters, though absent from the southern parts of the North Sea. The animals are not intertidal but live on sandy bottoms to 100 m deep, feeding selectively on diatoms and dinoflagellates.
The animals breed in summer laying lens-shaped capsules on weeds, each about 400 µm in diameter and containing 12-14 eggs from which veliger larvae develop. Metamorphosis and settlement take place when the larval shell is about half a millimetre in height.

Alvania punctura can be recognised by its brownish shell with finely reticulate sculpture and pointed larval shell with about 2.5-3 whorls.

It is collected in a large part of the Mediterranean, mainly in the central area where it is found even in remarkable depths. It prefers bottoms either with fine sand or slime but it lives either on algae too or on rocks of the intertidal zone with a good water circulation.

From northeastern Norway, along the European coasts, south to and into the central Mediterranean. Depth range, intertidal to about 40 m, in the southern part also slightly deeper. Not known from Iceland. Often common, undisturbed bottoms with fine sand or silt, also on algae and under low intertidal rocks with good water circulation.