Broad body shape with pronotum tapered towards head, and posterior end of elytra broad and obtuse. Elytra yellow (according to Barker 2006a), but aged reddish-brown on old specimens, and with a continuous black post-medial fascia and black apical mark, Ventral side black with blue reflections.

The old records of this species in SA are intriguing, as it otherwise known only from an extensive distribution in coastal and subcoastal Queensland. The best documented collection from SA is labelled as having been made by naturalist S. W. White on 27 October 1879 from Barabba Scrub, recorded in typical fashion on the Whites' narrow printed labels as a contraction: 'Brba-Scrb'. This is a well-documented historical location that falls between the mid-North towns of Mallala, Hamley Bridge and Owen, an area now intensively cleared for agriculture, Only a small remnant of the original Barabba scrub remains in a cemetery reserve.

The validity of a disjunct SA occurrence is supported by a collection of C. distincta held in the Victorian Museum, with the location 'Gawler', which is about 30 km SSE of Barabba. Further support is provided by the type specimen of Stigmodera sternalis, a species described by Blackburn 1892b and subsequently treated as a synonym of C. distincta by Carter 1913. Blackburn reported the type as being from 'S. Australia; in the collection of C. French, Esq.'.