Ground color of forewing upperside gray-brown, with strongly serrated wavy lines and a distinctive silvery white mark resembling letter gamma.

S. ain is a daytime flier, on the wings from July to August, depending on location.

Larvae green, with yellowish longitudinal and double dorsal lines.

S. ain is a Eurasiatic species, found locally in subalpine and alpine larch forests of the Alps, northern Carpathians (Krkonoše and Tatra Mts., sporadically also in South Slovakia and North Hungary), then eastwards in southern Ural Mts.

In the Far East, it inhabits the Korean Peninsula as well as Japan.