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A fairly small (approx 2.5 cm wingspan) lightly built rusty orange-brown moth. The forewings are orange-brown, crossed near the outer edge by a straight pale postmedian band. The most prominent marking is the white reniform, shaped like an open "C" with a short white bar or pupil in the middle or above. The hindwings are rusty-grey, paler in the basal half and with a thin darker median line. Some specimens are more contrasting, with the area around the reniform and beyond the postmedian line darker brown than the rest of the forewing. The small size, orange-brown color and contrasting white c-shaped reniform combine to make this a fairly easy moth to recognize.

Adults are nocturnal and come to light. There is a single brood, which is on the wing from July into September. The larvae are borers in the stems of some species of coarse grasses and sedges, including C. stricta. (Ferguson, 1954)

The Maritimes west to Alberta, south to Connecticut and Nebraska. In Alberta it has been collected throughout the parklands region, north to Barrhead and Redwater and south to Dinosaur Provincial Park. Hollow circles on the map are reliable records for which we have not seen specimens. S. includens are usually found associated with wet meadows and wetland edges.

This little moth is usually uncommon and local around wetlands. Spartiniphaga includens is listed as threatened or endangered in one or more Midwestern states, where it is found in wet prairie remnants. This little moth will always be special to me; it was the first moth Chris Schmidt and I caught the first time we went "mothing" together, a sugar-baiting expedition in the woods along Whitemud Creek in south Edmonton.