Adults are day flying and have been recorded on the wing in March, July and from September to December.

This species was first described by Edward Meyrick in 1889 and originally named Nepticula ogygia using a specimen collected in Dunedin in January.

[3] Morris N. Watt went on to give detailed information about the description and life cycle of this moth in 1921.

Around the outer margin of the egg the shell is slightly produced so as to form a flattened foot or fringe closely applied to the surface of the leaf.

The frass is black and coarsely granular, abundant, and occupies an almost unbroken chain along the middle half or three-quarters of the gallery.

It has a headpiece of pale amber-brown, darker round external margins, clypeal sutures, and mouth-parts.

Texture thin but dense, forming a kind of skin, and surrounded outside, except where attached to external objects, by a small amount of light floccy silk.

[4]Pupa Watt gave a detailed description of the pupa which included the following: ... the front is rounded and bluntly prominent; laterally there is a small incisura between it and the base of the antenna; this latter occupies the lateral outline for only a very short distance.

The last abdominal segment is bluntly rounded and is slightly notched caudad; the genital opening can be detected on its ventral surface.

Forewings lanceolate; pale grey, coarsely irrorated with black; an obscure cloudy ochreous-whitish suffusion towards costa at 2⁄3; an obscurely-indicated pale spot in disc before middle : cilia whitish-ochreous-grey, with an obscure line of dark scales round apex.

[3]Watt described a newly emerged specimen of this species as follows: Head and palpi pale yellowish-ochreous, collar and basal joint of antenna whitish.

Forewings pale grey, thickly irrorated with black scales; a small pale area on dorsum near tornus (this appears to be the most constant marking, and is quite conspicuous when the wings are folded at rest, when the two areas form a small saddle-shaped spot on the dorsum); in the female there is a second similar area on costa, and frequently the two may form an obscure light band across the wing; a very diffuse pale spot in disc at 1⁄4, frequently absent; a series of four small black spots in middle of wing, one at 1⁄4, 1⁄3, 1⁄2, and the fourth less distinct near termen; these spots are definitely fixed as to position, but one or more or all may be absent, that at 1⁄2 being the most constant: cilia pale grey with bluish reflections, a distinct black cilial line.

[4] The larva emerges from its mine through a semicircular cut in the roof of the gallery at its terminal part, and makes its way to the ground to pupate.