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A medium-size (3.0 cm wingspan) pale brownish grey moth. The antemedian and postmedian lines are almost complete, the later scalloped outward sharply at the veins. The terminal line is made up of a series of fine dark crescents between the veins. The most prominent marking is the reniform spot, which is a dark smudge. The hindwings are dirty white, darkening into a diffuse terminal band, and with the veins marked with dark scales. Very similar to Trichoclea antica, Scotogramma submarina, and species of Discestra, in particular D. "alta", all of which have darker hindwings. T. postica Smith has usually been treated as separate from T. decepta Grt., but Don Lafontaine and Jim Troubridge (pers. comm.) treat them a single species (decepta), a treatment which we follow here.

Throughout much of the Great Plains and Great Basin region, west to California south to Arixona, New Mexico and Texas, east to Nebraska and south Dakota. In Canada, it is found from the dry interior of southern BC east across southern Alberta to southeastern Saskatchewan. In Alberta, it has been found along the Lost River Valley and possibly at Dinosaur Provincial Park (needs confirming).