This species' common name is usefully descriptive: The forewings are dark reddish brown marked with a prominent light orange-brown stigma and a bright white subterminal line. The hindwings are grey, darker towards the termen. The wingspan is 34–44 mm. They are attracted to light, sugar and nectar-rich flowers.
Forewing red brown clouded with darker; veins grey, whitish towards termen: reniform stigma orange in its upper part, dark fuscous below; orbicular round, white edged, sometimes very small; submarginal line finely white, toothed on veins 3 and 4 to termen; hindwing dull whitish, pale fuscous towards termen; the veins dark. The ground colour varies on one side to black brown, ab. obscura Spul, and on the other to rufous, ab. rufa Tutt; ab. variegata Aust, from Morocco, is paler, reddish yellow.[1]
The larva is green or brown dotted with white with black and yellow spiracular lines down the side with darker edging. The tubercles are black. It feeds on a wide range of plants[2] and is occasionally a pest of cultivated tomatoes. The species overwinters as a pupa.
It is on wing from the latter half of June to July. Occasionally, there will be a second generation from the end of August to the first half of September.[3]
References
^Seitz, A. Ed., 1914 Die Großschmetterlinge der Erde, Verlag Alfred Kernen, Stuttgart Band 3: Abt. 1, Die Großschmetterlinge des palaearktischen Faunengebietes, Die palaearktischen eulenartigen Nachtfalter, 1914
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