This species, formerly considered a subspecies of the brown argus, Aricia agestis, replaces that species in Iberia, the Balearic Islands, Sardinia, North Africa and the Canaries. Like its relative, it is generally a common butterfly, though local, found in flowery places where its foodplants - various species in the geranium family - grow.

In most ways very similar to the brown argus, this species is brighter, on the upperside and underside, with complete arrays of large, orange lunules on the upperside, merging into a single orange band in the Canaries. The only place where confusion is likely to occur is on the French side of the Pyrenees, where it is possible both species fly (I am not sure if there is an overlap or a narrow band where neither flies). Otherwise, their distributions are geographically disjunct.

The southern brown argus flies in a succession of broods from April until September or October in Europe and is continuously brooded in the Canaries, where it has been recorded in every month of the year. Where it hibernates, it probably does so as a larva, like the brown argus.