Looking up "tan beetles" in google, I came across the grapevine beetle but this only gets up to 1" long according to most sites I've looked at. But imagine a larger version of something like this link below...

Here is a link that might be useful:

Good grief. Two inches long and round like a lady bug?

Are we getting palmetto bugs up here?

Lisa

No, no! Not cockaroach-like!

probably not your bug, but we have a small invasion of these wasps on steroids (size of my pinky), they actually dig into the grass/ground and make a hole (home?) and there are hills of dirt around the hole from the dirt they dug out (think large ant holes)and they've been getting into the garage. they are black and yellow. Yesterday I was cutting the grass and stopped to push bricks and debri out of the way, I noticed I had pushed a brick across one of those holes and rather flattened it up or closed it off. A while later, while working in the same area, I heard something hovering near my head, turned to see the wasp on steroids coming in for a landing with a cicada bigger than him strapped under his legs!! I called the kids out for this one. He dropped his cicada breakfast, walked over to his hole and figured out it was unfixable. So he goes back to his cicada, straps it back under his legs and attempts to lift off, but only gets a couple inches off the ground before falling again. He keeps at this getting several inches at best, never letting go of the cicada. Then, there is the large flat paver type brick laying on an angle like a ramp, and he walks over to it, runs up it and at the edge he attempts his take off! He fails but would you believe he goes back to the bottom of the paver and does it again and again, until finally, after 5 minutes, he gets good air and takes off into the sky with this cicada still strapped to his underside! well, my daughter and I followed its course and he wound up landing atop a very tall weeping willow tree! Not lady bug in shape but pretty freaky and cool!

karen64, we have those things here, too. They're "cicada-killers". They fly around at low altitudes but they don't seem to bother people. They drag their cicada's into the tunnel and use it for food - for themselves or their babies, not sure which. Their holes can really mess up a lawn.

I've seen these wasps over the weekend too so that answers another question I was going to search. They hang out in the tree we sit under when I bring my kids swimming. Huge! Gave my sister in law a jump. Fortunately this link says they aren't quick to sting. I have a growing population this year of the next wasp listed - the bald faced hornet,another new one for me. I did see one last year. They are loving my hydrangeas and sweetshrub.

Here is a link that might be useful: cicada killer

That's incredible! Thank you for the information! karen

Found one tonight. Its a grapevine beetle. Looks like a giant June bug. Kids thought it was awesome! Check it out at http://scienceblogs.com/photosynthesis/Pelidnota3.jpg

Great photo and interesting blog, Laurie5. I would say that looks like it though it has been a few years. I think ours was super size though. I haven't seen them around since.