"I can't believe they're pupating right in front of us!"

From "A Beetle Utopia on an Artist's Conk Fungus" at Scientific American. Artist's conks are "woody shelf fungi that cling to the trunks of trees."

Every single life phase of some sort of beetle was playing out in and around these conks simultaneously....

I tried searching the wikigooglepediatron for the identity of these beetles, but I came up empty. If any entomologists reading know what this beetle is, please tell me!...

Well, look at those photographs. That beetle looks familiar!

The black spots on the blue beetles were also a treat – like something out of Dr. Seuss.... Surely, surely, someone out there knows the identity of this huge, gorgeous beetle, who seems to have a highly specialized relationship with what appears to to be the fungus Ganoderma aplanatum – the artist's conk...

Back in July 2014, we were walking in the foothills by Boulder, Colorado, and we were talking to a young woman, a passerby, and she spotted something on the ground, picked it up on a rock, and held it out for me to photograph:



It's the same beetle Scientific American didn't know!

IN THE COMMENTS: Larry Davis said:

Pleasing Fungus Beetle - Gibbifer Californicus

I added the link. He seems to be right. Thanks, Larry!