I have never seen anything like it. It was completly gold and at first I thought it was a gold plated toy or piece of jewelry, but when it moved I realised it was a real live bug!
It immediately made me think of Richard Scarry and his Busy Town Books, which always feature a character somewhere in the page titled 'Gold Bug'.
I gave it to Quinn and asked him to put it in a bottle thinking it would be fun to keep it and/or take it to school for show and tell, but alas it was set free during the evening. I guess I wasn't specific enough about the putting it in a bottle, because although it had been put in a bottle, the bottle had no lid! *roll eyes* I did a quick search and discovered it is a Fool's Gold Beetle or Aspidomorpha tecta , they eat Morning Glory leaves and our next door neighbour has one growing on our adjacent wall so that must be where it came from.
Edit: I just found another reference to it as a Golden Tortoise Beetle - Charidotella sexpunctata which looks exactly the same, I wonder if this beetle has been classified twice...?I'll have a look around to see if I can find any more...
Here is some more info:
From Bug Guide and from wikipedia.
Interesting!
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