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A medium-size (approx. 3.0 – 3.2 cm. wingspan) olive green moth with black and white lines and spots. The antemedian and postmedian lines are very erratic, black lined with white scales. The orbicular and reniform spots are prominent, white with green filling and partially ringed with black. The fringes are checkered green, black and white. The hindwings are light black, with some pale scaling along the upper edge and a pale fringe. Sexes are similar, but males have narrowly bipectinate antenna, females simple. Feralia jocosa can usually be separated from other Alberta Feralia by the combination of small size, dark hindwings, and the lack of blocks or large patches of black scales on the forewings. Occasional specimens have some or all the olive green replaced with yellow-brown. Adults and the genitalia of both sexes are illustrated by Poole (1995).

Feralia jocosa is single-brooded, with adults in spring (late April through mid June). They lay eggs which hatch about the time the conifer buds are emerging, and most of their development occurs from the time the bud scales drop to the time the new needles have hardened, a period of 6 weeks or less. The adults develop in the pupa prior to winter, prepared to emerge early in the spring. The larvae are described and illustrated in color by Duncan (2006).

Northeastern USA, south to Maryland and Ohio, north to Newfoundland and west across the boreal forest to coastal BC, but replaced in the lower mainland and Vancouver Island by F. deceptiva. Open dots on the map are literature records only (Prentice, 1962).

Feralia jocosa is the smallest of our 3 Feralia species. Poole (op. cit.) states the very closely related Feralia deceptiva occurs in southwestern Alberta, based on a single specimen. We treat deceptiva as one of a suite of species restricted in Canada to extreme southwestern BC, and reject the Alberta record as either an unusually large, bright specimen of jocosa, or perhaps a mislabeled specimen.