This species inhabits wetlands, tussock country, and in grassy openings in native forest.

There has been considerable reductions of the range of this species with it possibly becoming extinct in eastern parts of New Zealand.

A. stinaria was first described by Achille Guenée in 1868 from a specimen collected in Canterbury by Richard William Fereday.

[3] Guenée described the species as follows: Superior wings ochreous-yellow, suffused with blackish; the only markings are two distant lines, the first forming a single angle in the cellule, the second simply wavy, these lines are slender, white, narrowly bordered with black on the costa, where they approach nearer one to the other, and followed by a brownish tinge; extremity of the fringes finely marked with white; inferior wings ochreous-yellow, without markings above, but beneath they are powdered with red, and traversed by six parallel lines, of which the four first are placed close together and discoidal, the two others isolated and toothed.

[1] It has been suggested that the decline of this moth is as a result of habitat destruction and the overgrazing of its possible host plant.