There is a triangular black patch at the middle of the outer wing margins. Chinch bugs overwinter as adults and become active in the spring. Adult females lay from 100 to 300 eggs in crevices of grass plants. The eggs change in color from pale yellow to red and hatch in about two weeks. The young nymph is yellow or red with a light-colored band across the back of the abdomen.
Older nymphs are black with a white spot between the wing pads.
There are two or three generations per year in Alabama. Damage Damage to lawns and other turfgrasses is due mainly to the feeding of chinch bug nymphs. They puncture the plant tissue with needle-like mouth parts and suck out the plant juice. This type of feeding causes yellow spots in the lawn that soon turn brown. As the grass dies, the chinch bugs move to the edge of the dead spots to feed.