Subject: Creepy security camera footage
Geographic location of the bug: Seattle, Washington
Date: 08/27/2018
Time: 11:53 PM EDT
Your letter to the bugman: Dear Bugman,
My parents recently invested in a security camera for their front porch which starts recording whenever it detects motion. While most of the footage is of deer, rabbits, and birds, we couldn’t help but be a bit creeped out by this one. It only has 6 legs, so it’s not a spider, but no antennae? Seems strange. It probably looks a lot more ominous than it actually is, but what it looks like is the stuff of nightmares, so seriously… what the hell is it???
How you want your letter signed: More curious than concerned
Dear More curious than concerned,
Security cameras have wide angle lenses, meaning they distort perspective by making objects closer to the camera appear disproportionately larger than they actually are. There is not enough detail for us to be able to provide you with a definitive identification, but our initial guess is possibly an Assassin Bug in the genus Zelus. We can think of a few other possibilities, but we thought it might be fun for our readers to write in and take a guess, either by posting a comment or writing back to us using the subject line “Security Camera Bug”.
I would not rule out a spider. They cant’ have more than eight legs, but fewer are very common.