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Golden tortoise beetle larvae have a posterior appendage called an anal fork that they can hang over themselves like an awning.

When a predator approaches, golden tortoise beetle larvae will gather into a defensive circle, "like a herd of bison in a ring," Chaboo says.

Recently, while shooting a tortoise beetle, I found that it kept flying off the leaf it was on and landing on my diffuser.

Here’s a video showing the rapid colour change in a Panamanian tortoise beetle: Not much is known about why these beetles change colour the way they do, but Barrows suggested it has to do with defence and/or sexual signalling.

Just how this illusion could be produced was discovered in 2007 by researchers from University of Numar in Belgium, who studied the very similar gold-to-red colour change in the Panamanian tortoise beetle.