The rice black bug is a rice sap feeding insect belongs to the genus Scotinophara (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae). Miyamoto et al. (1983) reported 42 species of sap feeding black bugs. Among the six species of Scotinophara reported from India, Scotinophara bispinosa is the only species reported from Kuttanadu, Kerala, India (Narayanasamy, 2007) which causes severe damages (Fig. 1) to the wet-season Kharif crop (Ambikadevi, 1998, Sosamma et al. 1998).
Wongisiri (1975) made a detailed revision on the genus Scotinophara. Cytogenetic and isozyme polymorphism of the rice black bug was studied by Genil (2007). Torres (2008) reported the difference among the different rice black bug populations of Philippines. Torres et al. (2010) studied the systematic