- Widespread distribution. South and Southeast Asia, Oceania. On coconut, but other palm species are attacked, including betel nut, sago palm and oil palm. Banana, Pandanus, sugarcane and tree fern are also hosts. An important pest.
- Adults fly at night, tunnelling into crowns, damaging the leaves, causing distinctive symptoms.
- Cultural control: destroy fallen logs or grow ground legumes to hide them, and encourage rotting: compost dead leaves and grass; turn manure and sawdust heaps and remove grubs; use wire to kill adults in crowns.
- Biopesticides: Oryctes rhinoceros nudivirus (capture and release adults); Metarhizium anisopliae (placed in breeding sites). Note, a new form of OrNV occurs in Guam, Palau, Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands.
- Chemical control: impractical and uneconomic; a pheromone is available to monitor/control populations
