[1] The original description (Galsworthy, 1997: 139) compares A. hongkongensis to Athetis lineosa and other species in the species complex, as follows: "Smaller than lineosa, with the hindwings less intense brown; forewing outer line in lineosa is smoothly curved from costa to dorsum, whereas in hongkongensis there is an obtuse angle close to the costa, and a further angle at about two thirds, where the line turns slightly towards the point of the wing, meeting the dorsum almost at a right angle.

"[citation needed] So far as is known, A. hongkongensis is restricted to, though widespread[2] within, Hong Kong, and thus regarded to be of "least concern" (as of 2014) with regard to conservation status, even though it meets IUCN Red List geographic criteria[3] for endangered (EN) - EOO less than 500 km2, AOO = 64 km2 as calculated using iNaturalist observations imported to GeoCat.

[4] Observations of Athetis hongkongensis[5] occur in secondary forest and on urban fringes between 30 m and 675 m elevation.

Kendrick (2002)[6] gives the adult phenology as "Recorded from February to November, peaking in April and October."

Athetis is placed in the subtribe Athetiina, of Caradrinini, in Noctuinae, by Holloway (2011),[7] and also in Kononenko & Pinratana (2013),[8] which were both based on (developed in parallel with) the molecular review of Noctuidae by Zahiri et al.