Found this suspended under the "ceiling" of a small cavity (less than a foot high) along the overhanging edge of a granite boulder. Below the overhang was fine sand/dust, ideal micro-habitat for Vermileo larvae and their pit-traps...which were present a few inches away. The larger habitat was a granitic bald within surrounding montane-coniferous forest, southwest of Lake Tahoe.

At first I thought this might be a Vermileo pupa...but later recalled they're known to pupate and emerge from the sand near their larval pit (at least from observations of captive reared specimens).

So this is likely something else. Remarkably, upon getting up after laying in the sand adjacent to the cavity to peer-in, I noticed a very recently eclosed ant-lion crawling along my shirt-sleeve! However, the pupal case in the photo seems way too small for something as large as that (or other ant-lions I've seen)...and I think ant-lions also pupate in the sand, rather than attached to an overhang.

I think I can make out two fairly-large, well-separated, "incipient" eyes under the skin of the pupal case, near the bottom in the image above.

Hoping someone may recognize this.