It resembles the ear moth (Amphipoea oculea), but is larger, with the ground colour, as a rule, pale and the reniform white.

[1][2] The larvae feed from May to July, at first within the lower stems and later among the roots of purple moor-grass (Molinia caerulea) and common cottongrass (Eriophorum angustifolium).

Pupation takes place on the ground in the leaf litter and the moth overwinters as an egg.

[2][3][4] Requiring genitalic examination to separate, See Townsend et al.,[5] Freyer, when describing the moth, placed it in the genus Apamea, which was raised by the German entomologist and actor, Ferdinand Ochsenheimer in 1820.

The specific name, lucens means gloss or shining, referring to the bright mark on the forewing (i.e. the reniform stigma – the ear in the English name).