Any help is appreciated. Lived here my whole life and never seen anything like it.
In Western Montana while digging a new garden area.

Looks sort of like a cicada shell

That was my first thought, but it's not like the very distinct shells I see here, like a little buffalo with a split down the back. It sort of suggests an incomplete metamorphosis... but of what, I couldn't guess.

GardenNooob, the photo is captioned "another one." Have you seen others? Any more pictures, different angles? Closer?

Cicada killer wasps will paralyze and then drag a cicada down into tunnels for the larva to feed on once their eggs hatch. Could this be what's left of the cicada after being buried and fed on? Is it hollow by chance?

It's labeled another one because I found another strange critter in that same area, that one turned out to be a Japanese beetle larvae.
I only took the one photo

Did you pick it up? Ditto Murky's Q, is it hollow?

It moved as though it was stretching after a long sleep. I moved it over to a shaded patch in the lawn. It wasn't there this morning.

Aw shucks, but really interesting!

Hopefully I'll find another one!

I found this image of the pupa stage of a grub from this site. Might it just be this?


Although to me it really looks like an alien fetus!

Edit: Here's another site with a good pic where this one came from.

I think Nancy nailed it. I'm late to the convo, but my first suggestion was going to be "grub", because we get those around here a lot and people call them grubs.

Way to go, Nancy. That looks like the answer. How extremely weird!