They have a dark-brown head and thorax, and a yellowish-green abdomen with dusky lateral patches on each segment with a membranous and pale dorsum.

[7] A. spiraecola is an holocyclic species, meaning that they undergo sexual reproduction during part of its life cycle and reproduces entirely parthenogenetically over most of its geographical range.

[6] If introduced to a new place, the odds of it surviving and reproducing are very good, barring cold climates as mentioned previously.

This aphid has been found to have a preference for woody plants of a shrubby growth habit with citrus and apples being the most important/affected crop hosts.

This species is thought to have originated in the Far East,[13] dating back to at least 1907 in North America, Australia in 1926, New Zealand in 1931, the Mediterranean in 1939[14] (other sources say only in the early 1990s),[13] Africa in 196, Israel in 1970,[1][10] Germany in 2000,[13] Hungary in 2004,[13] Bulgaria and Serbia in 2007,[13] the Baltic region in 2015,[13] Kosovo in 2018 (Llugaxhi on 23 July),[13] Slovakia in 2018 (Tvrdošovce on 2 May),[13] the Czech Republic in 2019 (Bílé Podolí on 21 June,[13] the United Kingdom in 2018 (Ash (near Canterbury) England on 13 July, after previous detections elsewhere in the UK in 1979 and 1996 did not go any further),[13] and Denmark in 2019 (in the Pometum of the Taastrup campus of the University of Copenhagen on 20 July).

Several studies tested a range of insecticides in citrus groves,[17] which compared treatments in apple orchards.

[20] Examples of suitable insecticide treatment for A. spiraecola are ethion, parathion-ethyl, dimethoate, fenitrothion, and dimefox via stem bandages.

[18][19] The favored insecticide is imidacloprid for orchard control, as shown in an experiment comparing efficacy of a plant growth regulator on apple/pear trees in Florida.