While we were in Colorado, we saw these cool metallic-blue larvae.

You might think they are caterpillars, but they are not.

These are the larvae of a leaf beetle.

Sometimes it is easy to forget that beetles have a larval stage like the other insects with complete metamorphosis, because you don’t see beetle larvae or pupae as often as you might see caterpillars.

The larvae are probably from beetles in the genus Trirhabda. You can see photographs of the adults at BugGuide.