This beetle looked absolutely golden when I took this picture (a bad picture; sorry): it's in the bottom left hand portion of the frame. I don't know if it's what is eating the morning glory or not. Its shape reminds me of an early instar potato beetle, but not the color.
So then I take the leaves off of them to take another picture, and they turn... red. Very weird.
That's a tortoise beetle, perhaps Charidotella sexpunctata. Those transparent fringe-thingies are pretty distinctive, and I think they only occur in the tortoise beetles (at least in the US).
Patrick Alexander
Thank you; tortoise beetle it is.
The fringe around the beetle does look like that around the immature potato beetle... innerestin.
