Good or Bad?

I'm really terrible at ID-ing bugs. Or birds for that matter. They never look quite like the illustrations in books, and then there are all the variations: male, female, immature, adult. So this beetle is either something that eats aphids (good!) or not (bad!). Time to email Bug Guide again.


A few days later: identified as Podabrus pruinosus or soldier beetle by the folks at BugGuide and by the sharp-eyed blipper below...