Simnia spelta
Habitat: it feeds on polyps of gorgonians Eunicella cavolinii, Eunicella singularis and other ones colonizing walls, camouflaging on their branches.
Distribution: it can be found in the Western Mediterranean. Uncommon.
Notes: Shell solid, fusiform, oblong, sharp at the two ends, with medium-high part more ventricous, aperture narrow and as long as the whole shell, external lip thickened with no denticulation internally. Surface of adult specimens is smooth, bright, while immature specimens present a fine spiral streaking closer at the two ends. Either white or ivory in colour, sometimes either yellow or light brown in colour. Protoconch is spherical in outline, light brown in colour and it is covered by a reticulum close and prominent. Mantle in expansion covers the shell wholly and it is variable in colouring which is often made by small pits, quite close, reddish in colour, on a ground light in colour.
Simnia nicaensis Risso, 1826 was put in synonymia with S. spelta (Dolin & Ledon, 2002).
Schiaparelli et al. (2005) established it exists another species with shell almost alike to spelta, living on Leptogorgia ceratophyta, having a mantle with stripes in different colours with a median streak red in colour: this species should correspond to S. illyrica Schilder, 1927. Average measures of adult specimens reach 15 mm in height.