We stopped alongside a road to collect insects from a small stream during one of my aquatic entomology classes and came across hundreds, maybe thousands, of these beetles:

Lots of beetles!

Aren’t they beautiful?!  According to the lovely, fabulous, wonderful people at bugguide.net (did I’m mention that they’re fantastic?), the stripey beetles are Paranaemia vittigera, a member of the family Coccinellidae.  Striped ladybugs!  Super cool beetles, especially in such huge numbers.

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