[1][2] The adult beetles, which are active both day and night and primarily seen from June to August, eat juniper leaves and the larvae feed on decaying wood from Arizona sycamore.

[1] The adult beetles are 20 to 30 millimetres (0.8–1.2 in) long,[4][5] and are bright green with silver stripes on the elytra (red and purple color forms occur but are very rare).

[1] These iridescent stripes on the cuticle of the elytra are a result of cholesteric liquid crystal organization of chitin molecules.

[7] As established through Mueller matrix spectroscopic ellipsometry,[8][9] the optical properties change with the incidence angle of the propagating light.

The polygonal cells in the green stripes generate self-healing Bessel beams.