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We were taking a water break during an outdoor rehearsal this evening when something glinted in the scrubby lawn. "If that were only a beetle," I thought, astounded by the impossibility of the colours. I looked again and, wonder of wonders, it was a beetle, and a quite a beauty for these parts, something called a Figeater Beetle (Cotinis mutabilis). I had no way to get a picture at the time, but here's one from BugGuide, which has a gallery of good shots. The interesting part about watching one of these on a lawn was, as brilliant as the green elytra look in the picture, they are actually. . .well, what I'd classify on a guitar as a "matte finish," not glossy. So between those and the stripes of beige at the edges, the creature would have blended in perfectly with a California high school lawn in the depths of summer, were it not for the gleaming of its emerald undercarriage. I thought it one of the loveliest things I had seen in a long while.