Or it would be if it were more than, y’know, an inch or so long.
Do you have any idea what it is? Other than a larval insect, I didn’t. Give up yet? Believe it or not, it’s a larval firefly. That’s right, you heard me, it’s a lightning bug of the genus Pyractomena. There are 16 species in the genus and not a lot of information, so I can’t take the identification to the species level.
These guys are, as their appearance suggests, predatory. They like snails which I find ironic because their head looks snail-like to me. In the early instars, there may be multiple larvae on one snail, but later instars are solitary predators though snails still the constitute the entire menu. They overwinter in larval form, usually on a tree well above the ground. I found this specimen on the same tree as the assassin bug I posted about a few days ago and I’m guessing he/she spent the winter there and the warm sunshine brought him out of hiding.
There is a great sequence of photos here that shows an adult emerging from the larval form. The page is in french, but the photos are outstanding.