Europe (except the extreme north, and not occurring in the south of Spain, Sicily, or the Balkans); also in Armenia, Asia Minor, Syria, Iran, Western Siberia, Kashmir (extending thence into Punjab).

The forewings are uniform dark brown with three blackish spots arranged in a triangle.

Forewing dull brown, dusted with paler scales, varying from pale to blackish brown; submarginal line only visible, indicated by a paler tinge preceded by a darker shade; orbicular stigma a blackish dot; reniform represented by two, one above the other, at end of cell; hindwing rufous fuscous, paler towards base; — turcomana Stgr.

is pale ashy grey, with no trace of submarginal line, and the stigmata very faint and more or less obsolete; the hindwing also much paler, dull whitish, becoming grey towards termen; (this central Asiatic form is probably a good species: the forewing has the apex more decidedly prominent [A. t. subspecies turcomana Staudinger, 1888]); — the blacker forms are separated as ab.

Recorded food plants of the mouse moth include monkshood, chervil, dogbane, columbine, wormwood, bellflower, eastern redbud, hawthorn, fireweed, fennel, strawberry, bedstraw, geranium, Scots lovage, toadflax, cow-wheat, monkeyflower, tobacco, parsley, plantain, poplar, Prunus, oak, redcurrant, rose, cloudberry, sorrel, willow, salad burnet, nettle, indica, and grape.