Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/06/29/this-stunning-jewel-beetle-is-mesmerizing-to-look-at.html
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Ooh, the different colors and textures are lovely. I feel privileged to have “figeater beetles” in my yard, which are a type of really beautiful, jewel-like scarab with bright metallic green bodies. I wouldn’t mind losing the occasional fig to them, but they go for fruit that’s already been damaged (e.g. partially eaten by the raccoons and possums and squirrels and birds and…) and the larvae live in the compost piles, so there’s no downside.
(Wikipedia’s pictures don’t really do them justice - the ones around here, anyways, are like green gold, the green darkening a bit on the back, and a tan fringe on their elytra.
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Japanese beetles have a similar green, but only on on part of their shell. They invest my ex-wife’s trees every year and they trap literally gallons of them with pheromone traps every year. 
I hear if you have chickens, they love them.
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The vivid ones I come across hiking are the tiger beetles, in bright green.
They run and fly fast, hard to get a good picture.
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So, one time I saw one scurrying across my patio and I got it an put in a jar just to look at it for a bit.
That’s when I realize the back half of it was hollow - been eaten from the inside by something! I put it out of its misery. Mother Nature is scary!
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When I first saw the figeater, at a distance, I was afraid it was a Japanese beetle, but the figeaters are enormous (and shinier). They also fly around somewhat awkwardly with a very loud buzzing noise, which is kind of adorable. I read that they have the potential to be a pest, but they just don’t have the numbers for that to be an issue (plus, as pests go, they’d come in a distant sixth after all the other animals that eat the fruit).
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