However, hunting billbugs prefer zoysia and Bermuda grasses. Variously shaped, yellow or brown patches appear in infested lawns. The symptoms may resemble fertilizer burn. In the southern states, billbugs may overwinter in any life stage, although adults are best able to withstand severe winters. Emerging in the spring, adults feed and mate.
Females place eggs in cells cut into grass stems.
Two days to two weeks later, larvae appear and work their way down from the inner leaves to the root system. They feed for 3 to 5 weeks before pupating in cells in the soil. The pupal period lasts 3 to 7 days. Afterwards, the new adults may remain in the pupal cells to overwinter or may emerge and be active until the onset of cold weather. One generation is completed each year.