This huge grayling is common in much of Europe, favouring grassy places with plenty of bushes. It is particularly fond of settling on hot tarmac, where it rests, ever alert, ready to fly up as soon as it thinks you are about to take a photo. At other times it will zoom up with its characteristic strong, bouncy flight up into nearby trees, where it will stop and look down on you. The first adults appear in June and the species remains on the wing in a single brood until September.

The combination of great size and the white bands on the upperside make it unmistakable on the wing. A beginner might wonder if it is a poplar admiral - but that species has a quite different flight. Great banded graylings bounce energetically. Poplar admirals glide effortlessly between lazy flaps. At rest, only the underside is ever visible. In some ways it resembles other large graylings - like the woodland grayling - but the splashes of white in the basal half of the hindwing and forewing (in the cell of the forewing) are distinctive.

The foodplants include sheep's fescue and upright brome - but other grasses too. It hibernates as a caterpillar, completing its larval development by the end of May the following year. It is then that you might come across one wandering along a road or track between grassy areas, looking for a place to pupate.