The habitat requirements of the species are a bit unusual, it seems to prefer locally warm deciduous and mixed forests, where birch, the sole host plant, forms the canopy (except Japan, where Sorbus reported).

On the forewings there is a typical, clearly orange-yellow marking approximately in the form of a Y, framed by two other, smaller spots of the same colour.

The egg is flat arched of white, yellowish or light green colour.

It is yellow-green, with two dark green, yellowish dorsal lines, as well as black stigmas and golden yellow stripes above the feet.

The former occurs in Northern Europe as far as Finland, and the latter is found in the Baltic provinces and is the predominant form in Eastern Asia.

In Central Europe the moths fly annually in a generation from mid-May to the end of June.