What they have in common is these little buggers.
I think the morphology goes like this.
The black beetle lays eggs (none in photos) that grow into the white
wormy looking larva (on the right) in my hand.
Then you go to the white squishy molting stage in the log pic. (2 creatures)
Back to my hand is the reddish looking beetle. That one is the last stage before becoming the black adult. Yummy for bears and catfish.
Zuma