Several species have been found feeding on cornstalks in South Carolina. The one causing the most damage over the state is the maize billbug.
Billbugs attack seedling corn at the base of the stalk, at or just below the soil surface. They pierce the stalk with their beaks, and feed on the tender inner tissue. The eggs are laid inside the stalk.
The larvae are legless, ivory-colored grubs that eat out the inner stalk; then they hollow out a cell in the taproot where they pupate and hibernate. New adults leave the soil during April about the time most corn emerges and feed on seedling corn.
Most species of corn billbugs depend on crawling to reach a new field of corn, even though it may be one-fourth mile away.
