It is found in alpine habitats on the high mountains (from 1,000 to 3,600 meters) in Central Asia (Tian-Shan, Pamiro-Alai and Hindu Kush).

[4] This species was first described in 1887 by Staudinger under the name Dasychira selenophora based on two adult male specimens sent from a city in what is now southeastern Uzbekistan.

[3] These were grown from caterpillars, and the females had emerged with curiously deformed wings, which led Staudinger to question if the animals had been raised correctly, or if was the natural form.

[4][5] In 1892 William Forsell Kirby eventually classified it in the new genus Dasyorgyia anyway, together with the species previously known as Dasychira pumila.

[5] Embrik Strand, in 1912[7] (Kozhanchikov gives the date 1910, this is likely a mistake), described Dasyorgyia pamiricola, which was synonymised with this species before 1950.

[8][9] Karel Spitzer reiterated this subgeneric classification in a 1984 paper, in which he also synonymised the new Chinese taxon G. ruoergensis with this species.

[9] Grum-Grshimailo encountered his specimens in the Pamir Mountains always in the same habitats: small patches of thawed ground amongst snowy fields, in somewhat wet areas, and amongst Ranunculaceae beginning to flower and herbs including what he thought were perhaps Gentiana.

The first was one Herr Maurer living in the city of Margilan who sent two male specimens for study to German regions in the 1880s,[3] and the second was Grigory Grum-Grshimailo who traversed the mountains of the Pamir region in four expeditions between 1884 and 1889 and was able to collect a number of male specimens at high altitudes on remote mountain passes, always in the summer.

[8][9] Grum-Grshimailo states that it is found all over the vast region of the Pamirs in the same specific alpine habitats, but that in general it is very rarely encountered.