Hello Martha,

It's a springtail (Collembola), that is why you couldn't find anything close in beetles. At the first sight I think it could belong to the family Entomobryidae but I don't know anything about the US fauna in this group, so lets wait for a specialist...

Hello Martha:

Your specimen belongs to the Elongate-bodied Springtails, order Collembola (Entomobryomorpha) Familiy Tomoceridae  in the genus Tomocerus. Probably Tomocerus minor

http://bugguide.net/node/view/1115246

Thanks so much, Vincent and Luis!  I had of course heard of springtails but thought they must be some very minute kind of creature that I would never see or recognize.  This is my very first one!  Another coincidence:  This morning I was looking at some observations that a friend had posted on iNaturalist.org.  One of them looked like my "beetle" and it was a springtail!  Isn't that amazing?  There must be some giant Meme about springtails going through the ether.  It is like two years ago when I kept seeing some new tiny creatures and Bugguide told me they were barklice (or barklouses).  Now I see them and other psyllids all the time!  Well, for a spate at least in early spring and late fall.  Thanks for helping me out.  Maybe I'll actually recognize another springtail soon.  

Best, Martha

ps.  Luis, I spent a semester in Quito a few (11!) years ago, and never got to Colombia!   Sorry to say!

pps.  I am an amateur but have the nerve to run a blog of the bugs I see in my wild back yard.   I just put one out last week and maybe will have enough to talk about again soon..  As spring progresses, it becomes weekly until winter, when it's sporadic.  It's at this link: 

http://mokennon.albion.edu/backyardblog.htm

Vincent and Luis,

Something pricked at my memory, and sent me back to a creature I had simply labeled "mystery d" on 2/19/17, 2/14/17, and 2/17/17.  I now believe they are ALL springtails.  Thank you again for opening my head to a new possibility.  They all seem to be the elongated springtails.  I'm using Bugguide's guide (to think I've skipped over order 2 every time till today!)  Since the lighting was different each separate day, I suppose that is why the colors are so different.  It turns out that if you don't know what you are looking at, your photo can turn out to be anything at all!  But I'll try to see if they differentiate into different species.  Thanks again!

Thank you Martha for sharing your blog, 

A very good compendium of diverse arthropods that you have in your back yard. About your new set of photographs is possible that you may have at least two different species. Springtails are very abundant in the soil.

Regards,

Luis Miguel

Thanks.  They did look a bit different.  Is this a good time of year (early spring) to see them?  They were very small and I could easily have been overlooking them all this time!  I finally saw the tails on some of the ones in the Bugguide guide. 

I used to have a nice flower garden, but since I got interested in the other little creatures, I let them eat the gorgeous flowers and let the weeds grow.  Now my favorite flowers are goldenrod and raspberry flowers.  Esp the goldenrod, which is a one-plant host for so many little things.  So now I have a sign on my front door saying "wildlife habitat".  Otherwise the city gets on your case about the "noxious weeds". :-)  Now I'm the crazy bug lady. 

Take care,

Martha

Martha.

Sorry i can't help you with this.

Hi Martha,

Re. your original 'beetle', what was the approximate size? I agree with Luis that Tomocerus minor looks a very likely candidate and this is around 4 - 4.5 mm, but if it's bigger (6.0 mm), could be T. flavescens. The top one looks like an Orchesella (maybe alticola) to me, which is 4.5 mm, but this is a bit of a guess.

Cheers,

Richard

Thank you all for helping me with this naïve question.  You've expanded my bug vocabulary.  Before this, I'd always thought springtails were almost invisible and insignificant creatures.  When I began to collect insect guides as a child, they were a minor order among the insects.  But now springtails have six legs but are not insects!  Funnily, at the end of the introduction in Wikipedia, we find the author(s) using the word "insects" to refer to them.  Thanks again for all the attention you've paid to my "frassable" photos, no easy task.  I'll look again into the new possible ID's in Richard's letter.  You are all wonderful!  Thanks again.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Springtail

Collembola are dear little creatures. The short-bodied taxa look like little cows. If you want a really good (and comparatively cheap) guide, try:

http://www.field-studies-council.org/publications/pubs/a-key-to-the-collembola-(springtails)-of-britain-and-ireland.aspx

It was written by one of my lecturers in (very long ago) undergrad. times. Sadly, Steve died so this was published posthumously. It is, of course, designed for use in Britain and Ireland, but many species are found either side of the pond and it will work to some degree in the US.

Cheers,

Richard

Thanks Richard.  I'm sorry about your friend.  It's good that he got a nice book out so people will remember (or imagine) him to have been a wonderful person!  Thank you for the information.  Let me see if Amazon.com has it.  (or an American-bug-or-springtail  version).   Oh wow, as the hippies used to say, do you know you can get a copy for several hundred POUNDS via Amazon.com?  There are a number of books but for some reason a number of them are all about how to exterminate the dear little creatures!  I was going through some old photos as I prepared this period's blog - and saw that I had shot one a year ago and it was still labeled beetle mystery-  (I use - for ? as  ? is not a character that can be used in a file name.)  I will likely get it though -I'm an inveterate collector of books.  Thanks for whipping up my imagination.

I am sorry that I am not able to help you because this is not my area of expertise. 

It's ok, I think this question has been satisfactorally answered. Thanks anyway!