The skull-like marking is darker and there is a faint blue tornal dot enclosed by a black submarginal band on the hindwing upperside.

Head brown; thorax dark blue-grey, with black lateral lines which meet behind; the center of the thorax occupied by a fulvous skull-mark with two black eyes; abdomen yellow, with blackish segmental bands and a blue-grey stripe down the vertex.

Larva green, with oblique lateral yellow streaks on somites 4-10.Eggs are laid primarily on Bignoniaceae, Fabaceae, Oleaceae, Pedaliaceae, Solanaceae and Verbenaceae.

Larvae closely resemble those of A. atropos except that the dark blue dorsal speckling is more pronounced on the anterior half of each abdominal segment, and the tail horn is less curved and lacks a reflexed tip.

A. s. styx occurs from north-central and western China westward across northern Thailand, Myanmar, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Pakistan and Iran to Saudi Arabia, Iraq,[1] Jordan[4] and Israel.