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All life stages may be spent inside the host palm. Each adult female deposits individually between 200 to 300 eggs or more in separate holes or cavities on soft tissues in wounds and mechanically injured parts of the host plant. Eggs are whitish-yellow, smooth, shiny, and cylindrical with rounded ends, slightly narrower at the anterior end, and about 3 mm long and 1 mm wide. The eggs hatch in two to five days, and larvae bore into the interior of the palms, feeding on the soft succulent tissues, expelling the chewed up fibrous material. Larvae are legless, robust, with a creamy-white body and brown hard head capsule, and grow up to 50 mm in length. The larval period varies from one to three months depending on factors like host, climate. Pupation occurs in an elongate oval, cylindrical cocoon made of fibrous strands, about 40 mm in length. Adult weevils emerge 2-3 weeks after pupation. Thus the life cycle is completed in about 4 months but sometimes it may extend by several months due to environmental factors.
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