Does anyone know what this is

I found this on one of my tomato plants this afternoon, and later found one on some kale. I've never seen them before. They're about 1/4 inch long and look at first glance like bird poop. I think they're beetles because they definetly fly. When it first noticed I was there it plastered itself down flat to the leaf and didn't move, it really looked like bird poop then. I've been finding mysterious holes in all of my plant's leaves and I'm wondering, are these causing them. Thanks in advance for your help

Here's another picture

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and finally

yehudith,

This forum is for questions relating to adding data to the BugFiles database.

We have a forum on Insect and Spider Identification here: http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/f/bugid/all/
and if you post your question there, you may get some help,

If you have an image, you could attach it to the message you post for a better chance of getting an identification

Having said all that, I have managed to locate your beetle. It is a leaf beetle in the family Chrysomelidae and more particularly a tortoise beetle of the sub-family Cassidinae. Yours is known as the Clavate Tortoise Beetle (Plagiometriona clavata): http://bugguide.net/node/view/302620/bgimage

We have a page for it in BugFiles here: http://davesgarden.com/guides/bf/go/576/ and one of our members reports

thank you