7,000 Bugs and Lizards Were Stolen from a Museum… And the Buzz Is, the Employees Did It.

Pedro_P

Thieves ransacked the collection of a live insect museum, making off with a number of exotic arthropods, such as this giant desert centipede.
Credit: The Philadelphia Insectarium and Butterfly Pavilion
▼ A museum in Philadelphia is short a few bugs. Well, more than a few. Approximately 7,000 insects, spiders and scorpions — and a number of lizards — were recently stolen from the Philadelphia Insectarium and Butterfly Pavilion.
The purloined critters are estimated to be worth about $40,000, and museum officials suspect that the thieves will try to sell many of the highly prized creatures to collectors, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
Exotic species such as orchid mantises, giant African millipedes and leopard geckos are among the missing, and museum employees are thought to be responsible for the theft, which is currently under investigation by the FBI, John Cambridge, owner of the Insectarium, told Live Science.
Rhino roaches, multiple tarantula species and highly venomous six-eyed sand spiders are also among the individual arthropods that were stolen, according to Cambridge.
"They just took them straight out of active exhibits, put them into transfer containers and took them away," he said.
Entire colonies of insects that were maintained behind the scenes and used for educational programs were also taken. In total, the thieves made off with more than 80 percent of the museum's collection, CNN reported. This might be the biggest live-insect heist in history, and it's a theft that's so unusual that the museum's insurance probably won't cover the loss, Cambridge told CNN.
"Why would they? This is unprecedented," Cambridge added.
Sending a message
A disgruntled employee may have masterminded the theft as payback for being fired, organizing the rest of the people in his or her department to steal the collection, Cambridge told Live Science.
The employee had turned in their blue work uniform in a disturbing manner, using a pair of knives to stab it into the wall of a quarantine space at the museum, "to send a message," Cambridge said.

That's one way to give notice.
Credit: The Philadelphia Insectarium and Butterfly Pavilion
Beginning on Aug. 21, security cameras captured the culprits — employees of the Insectarium — removing insectsand other creatures from the premises in boxes; they stealthily continued to spirit bugs and lizards out of the building for the next several days, according to Philly Voice. (▪ ▪ ▪)

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soothsayer

weird fellow! He looks for his booty in unusual places!

fatsogamer

for what did they do so