[citation needed] It is widespread and common in southern England, and also occurs in Ireland and throughout continental Europe, with the exception of Albania, Greece and Turkey.

[4][5] The larvae feed, from April to June, on the stems and roots of various grasses and low plants, including butterbur (Petasites hybridus) and tufted hair-grass (Deschampsia cespitosa); preferring damp habitats.

See Townsend et al.[7] Carl Linnaeus, when describing the moth, placed it in the genus Phalaena, from a specimen found in Sweden.

The moth is now placed in the genus Amphipoea which was raised by the Swedish anatomist Gustaf Johan Billberg in 1820.

The specific name, oculea, means eyed, from the reniform stigma, which British entomologists referred to as an 'ear'.