Native to southern South America, it was introduced into Florida in the United States in an effort to provide a biological control of pest (Neoscapteriscus) mole crickets.

It is now called Steinernema neocurtillae Nguyen, Smart, and is known to attack only the native mole cricket Neocurtilla hexadactyla[1] Steinernema scapterisci can be distinguished from other species of its genus "by the presence of prominent cheilorhabdions, an elliptically shaped structure associated with the excretory duct, and a double-flapped epitygma in the first-generation female.

[3] Individual adults of S. scapterisci are either male or female and their entire life cycle takes place within the host insect.

Here they liberate a specialist bacterium, Xenorhabdus innexi; this causes sepsis in the host insect, eventually killing it, but not before the nematode has passed through its various life cycle stages and further infective juveniles have developed.

[4] In Florida, mole crickets in the genus Neoscapteriscus did great damage to pastures, lawns and golf courses from the 1930s to 1990s.

[3] By 2004, pest mole cricket populations in Florida had declined by 95% due to action of three parasites, not just Steinernema scapterisci; the others are Ormia depleta (Diptera: Tachinidae) and Larra bicolor (Hymenoptera: Crabronidae).