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The body varies in colour from yellow to brown, but most commonly is dark yellow with brown areas medially on each tergite. Males tend to be paler than females. Antennal segments 2, and 6 to 8 are brown, segments 3 to 5 are yellow with brown apices. The legs are mainly yellow with a hint of brown. The head is wider than long, with 3 pairs of ocellar setae present, and pair 3 arises on the anterior margins of the ocellar triangle. The antennae are 8 segmented, and segments 3 and 4 each have a forked sense cone. Antennal segment 8 is longer than segment 7. Postocular setae pair 1 is present, and pair 4 is longer than the distance between the hind ocelli. The pronotum has 5 pairs of major setae, and the anteromarginal setae are somewhat shorter than the anteroangulars. The metanotum has 2 pairs of setae along the anterior margin, and 2 campaniform sensilla are present. Females are macropterous, and the forewing has 2 complete rows of veinal setae. There is a complete posteromarginal comb on tergite 8 (Moritz et al., 2001).

This species can be found on a wide variety of plants including: beans, apple, Salix sp. Rosa acicularis, Shepherdia canadensis, Alnus sp., Linnaea borealis, Hordeum jubatum, Melilotus, (Chiasson, 1986), in green houses and malls (Heming). F. occidentalis causes serious damage to flowers and fruits though feeding (Stannard, 1968), but is also a predator of spider mites (Moritz et al., 2001).