The color and tuberculation of the larvae match the surface texture and appearance of twigs of some common host plants. Pupae are light green with darker green lines simulating a leaf-like texture. The goatweed butterfly has two flights per year in the North with possibly three or four flights in parts of the South. Their flight is swift and erratic. Overwintering adults mate in the spring.
Males wait for females in clearings or on ridge tops.
Adults feed on sap flows, decaying fruits, and dung. A commonly used host-plant species in central Florida is silver croton, Croton argyranthemus Michx. First and second instar larvae eat the leaf blade away from the midrib and rest at the tip. Older larvae fold and silk the sides of leaves together and hide inside with their heavily sclerotized heads blocking the entrance to the leaf roll. The pine sandhill and scrub habitats that support silver croton are rapidly diminishing in Florida because of development.