The black rice bug, Scotinophara lurida (Burm.), is widely distributed in Ceylon in areas where rice is grown under irrigation. It first became a serious pest in 1940 and, periodically since, it has assumed epidemic proportions in the Southern Province where two crops of rice are grown annually. Each crop takes from 3½ to 4 months to mature, the fields lying fallow in the intervening periods. During these periods the insects aestivate, in the adult or late nymphal stages, in cracks in the bunds in the rice-fields or on neighbouring higher ground. They remain motionless for the most part during aestivation, are gregarious and occur as much as 2 ft. below ground-level.

The adults leave the aestivation sites in April and May and settle in the first crop when it is two to three weeks old, and a subsequent aestivating population behaves similarly in November and December for. the second crop. There is at first considerable flight activity at dusk, and at night, and after feeding for about a week on the rice seedlings copulation takes place and oviposition commences about ten days later.