EISPIRATEN

What's this bug?

bug by moore91024, on Flickr

Tons of them tooling around in the leaf litter at First Water on the Mt Wilson trail. They didn't seem too interested in crawling up on me (of which I approved).

Comparing it to the mottled granite rock its on (for size; how big was it?) I'd guess its an aphid of some type, though its missing a few classic aphid features on its back ( so my second guess would be some type of beetle). They're also easy to identify if you have a picture of the mouthparts; they'll look something like the 'proboscis' a mosquito uses to suck sap/blood out of plants/animals.

Yep, there are aphids out there in the wilderness, not just on the flowers, shrubs, and trees in your backyard.

Yeah, it was difficult to photograph them because they didn't stop moving much, so I couldn't really drop an object for scale. I'd say the body length was about half an inch.