It occurs in the northeastern Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, where it lives on the floor in shallow areas buried in soft sediments.

It has a pair of thin brittle valves that are translucent, semi-shiny and a dirty white colour with a pale brown periostracum.

The shape is roughly oval and the posterior and anterior dorsal margins are almost straight and slope to rounded ends.

[2] Abra alba feeds by means of a pair of separate long, extensible siphons, elongations of the mantle.

[3] In studies of Liverpool Bay, a community that includes A. alba, Phaxas pellucidus (the transparent razor shell) and Lagis koreni (the trumpet worm) is likely associated with more than one habitat.