Anna said:

My granddaughter caught a strange beetle on my sliding glass door. I live
in zone 8, Oregon. I posted a picture of it on
alt.binaries.pictures.gardens .
Can anyone id it for us? It looks like something from a science fiction
movie. It has iridescent markings on a saucer like shell, which is almost
transparent around the edges.

It is a type of tortoise beetle (family Chrysomelidae, subfamily Cassidinae).
Exactly which species is hard to determine.

If you haven't tried posting to sci.bio.entomology.misc, you should...

--
Pat in Plymouth MI ('someplace.net' is comcast)

Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
(attributed to Don Marti)