Sciophila fractinervis is a tropical species and was originally described in 1940 by Frederick Wallace Edwards using specimens collected by Friedrich 'Fritz' Plaumann from the neighbourhood of Nova Teutonia, Santa Catarina, Brazil.

[1] S. fractinervis has been found on cultivated greenhouse plants in the United Kingdom[2] and was recorded by Peter J. Chandler in 2010 on examples of commercially-grown Eustoma grandiflorum from Warwickshire.

[5] The larvae of Sciophila fractinervis are brown in colour and have a glossy appearance, due to being enclosed in a mucus tube created from labial glands around the mouth.

[1] Edwards observed that the macrotrichia (hairs or bristles) on the wings of S. fractinervis are less dense, and therefore more conspicuous than on the comparable species Sciophila ciliata.

[1] Sciophila fractinervis larvae build silky cocoons of webbing either on the basal leaves of their host plant or on the soil underneath.