Balvia is an ammonoid cephalopod

Cephalopod

A cephalopod is any member of the molluscan class Cephalopoda . These exclusively marine animals are characterized by bilateral body symmetry, a prominent head, and a set of arms or tentacles modified from the primitive molluscan foot...

 genus from the Upper Devonian belonging to the goniatitid family Prionoceratidae

Prionoceratidae

Prionoceratidae is one of seven families of the Prionocerataceae families, a member of the Goniatitida order. They are an extinct group of ammonoid, which are shelled cephalopods related to squids, belemnites, octopuses, and cuttlefish, and more distantly to the nautiloids.-References:* accessed...

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Balvia has a small, lenticular to subglobular shell with a punctate umbilicus, that is completely involute. Growth lines are fine, forward slanting, concavo-convex; indicate well developed ventrolateral salients and hyponomic sinus. Flanks have several weak constrictions, which usually swing forward at venter to form grooves bounding a median keel. The aperture may be modified.

Balvia was named by Dieter Korn

Dieter Korn

Dr. Dieter Korn is a German scientist and paleontologist specializing in research on ammonites and goniatites. He received his Ph.D. in 1996 from the University of Tübingen and is employed by the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin, Germany, in the Leibniz Institute for Research on Evolution and...

 in 1994 with the redescription of the type species, Gattendorfia globularis originally described by Schmidt in 1924. The genus was further divided into the subgenera B.(Balvia), B. (Mayneoceras), and B.(Kenseyoceras) by Becker in 1996.