The forewings are dark green with brown streaking, the hindwings are bright red with bold black and white markings.

Like other castniids, this species flies by day and has clubbed antennae and is easily mistaken for a butterfly.

The larva is whitish and maggot-like and feeds in the stems and trunks of palms (see list below for recorded food plants).

Since arriving in the Southern France in the mid-1990s (probably in mature specimens of Trithrinax from Argentina), it has spread along the Mediterranean coast to parts of Spain, Italy, Greece and Cyprus[1][2] and it is feared that without effective control, it could spread to areas where palms grow throughout the region.

[2] The species was first reported on Russia's Black Sea coast in 2014,[3] and by 2016 had been implicated in the death of over 200 palm trees in Sochi.