It is found in Albania, the Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey and northern Iraq.

[citation needed] The males can be easily distinguished from the females by the white base and they are found in dry, stony slopes and gullies, usually on limestone.

The female has a bright ochre-yellow distal band, which extends on the forewing as a long and broad smear over the disc into the brown-grey ground-colour to near the base.

— The European form, amalthea Friv: (43 g), has similar males as the form from Asia Minor, but entirely different females; these are like the males, possessing on the forewing a white macular band, with very large ocelli, the hindwing usually bearing in the middle a white smear; south-eastern districts of the Balcan Peninsula.

— The butterflies are extremely abundant in their flight places, namely barren hills and sterile detritus, and fly in April and May, at higher altitudes not before the end of May.