[5] The common name of E. saccharina, the African sugar-cane borer, is derived from its activity as a pest in stretches of sub-Saharan Africa.

[2] There are also populations of the African sugar-cane borer in stretches of northern Africa, in particular Ethiopia and parts of Senegal.

However, recently, the African sugar-cane borers have been found to extend their home ranges to graminaceous crops, particularly in eastern and southern Africa.

Female African sugar-cane borers prefer to deposit eggs onto dry or dead leaf material.

Kairomones, which are semiochemicals emitted by an organism to mediate interspecific interactions, are found in the dead leaves and attract the females to oviposit.

[13] The yellow oval eggs are deposited in groups of 250 to 500 onto the inner side of leaf sheaths, structures that tightly wrap near stems, allowing them to fit snugly into the plant stalks.

[6][14] African sugar-cane borer larvae appearance range from a light brown to dark grey.

[15] They have a distinct brown plate on the dorsal side of their thoraxes, and average larval duration is 31 days.

[8][6] Like other moths, African sugar-cane borers experience the greatest levels of mortality during the egg and larval life cycles.

In particular Pheidole, a species of small ants are well-suited to reaching African sugar-cane borer eggs, which are commonly hidden in tight spaces behind leaf sheaths.

Mite egg predators are less understood but pose a large problem for E.saccharina due to their small size and abundance in habitats where African sugar-cane borers live.

[17] Larger, more aggressive ants like Dorylus as well as some spiders are common predators for African sugar-cane borer larvae.

Larval predators often attack young, dispersing larvae or those that have not penetrated into host plant stalks.

G. natalensis are attracted to the bore holes left by E. saccharina, and after entering, sting the larva, temporarily paralyzing it and allowing for oviposition.

[8] Since the African sugar-cane borer is very sensitive to temperature, male mating behaviors have been found to stop when conditions are below 15 degree Celsius.

[8] African sugar-cane borer males secrete pheromones by wing glands and abdominal hair-pencils to attract females.

[20] The African sugar-cane borer larvae enter mature target plants through cracks or openings in the stalk.

[21] Since African sugar-cane borers, are known to lay eggs specifically in dry leaf material, farmers developed a simple yet effective technique known as pre-trashing.

Pre-trashing involves the preemptive removal of dry or dead leaf material from sugarcane field that do not have existing populations of E.saccharina.

This technique, however, does have some drawbacks, since pre-trashing does cause irreversible damage to growing plants and reduces crop yield.

These trap plants attract female African sugar-cane borers to oviposit where eggs often develop poorly or not at all.

[26] Additionally, pests found feeding on silicon treated plants suffer from reduced food intake, survival, and population growth.