It has been found feeding on sedges, plants belonging to the family Cyperaceae, and its larvae host at least three species of parasitoids in Hawaii.

It was first described by Lord Walsingham in 1907 as Batrachedra microstigma from specimens collected at 2,000 feet (610 m) in altitude in the Waianae Mountains of Oahu by Robert Cyril Layton Perkins, and moved to the genus Chedra by Elwood Zimmerman in 1978.

Otto Herman Swezey collected larvae at a coastal marshland near the city of Honolulu known as 'Kewalo', now long lost to development, which he then reared to adult moths.

[6] Zimmerman further theorised that the mode of invasion may have been the U.S. Army, which posted a large number of horses and mules on Oahu after the USA usurped the native government in 1893, and imported a large amount of hay and silage from the West Coast of North America as provender for this stock, in which stalks the caterpillars may have hitched a ride.

[2] Zimmerman reported finding the parasitoids Bracon swezeyi, Chelonus blackburni and Trathala flavo-orbitalis infesting this moth species in Hawaii.