It is brown in color during its first few days of adult life and soon turns shiny black.

The female lays over 300 eggs one by one in the lower leaves and rhizomes of the salvinia plant.

It burrows through rhizomes and feeds voraciously on new buds, warping and stunting the plant until it eventually sinks.

The larva pupates underwater amongst the rhizomes of the plants in a cocoon it weaves from root hairs.

Early experimental successes occurred in parts of Africa and southeast Asia, and the weevil is now established in the southeastern United States and parts of Australia, along with the moth S. multiplicalis, as biological control for invasive water weeds.