A room swarming with thousands of giant, exotic creepy-crawlies may sound like your worst nightmare (or one of Ant and Dec’s Bushtucker Trials on I’m a Celebrity). It is also the starting point for Bug Out, the latest bizarre true-crime documentary series, which is set in the US’s first bug zoo, the Philadelphia Insectarium & Butterfly Pavilion. Prepare for a mystery with more twists than a worm colony.
The show focuses on the moment in August 2018 when the museum’s boss, Dr John Cambridge, arrived at work and did a double take when he realised his room, that ought to have been full of critters, was suddenly empty. Glass tanks were upended, shelves bare, displays cleared out. Thousands of live bugs, worth an estimated $50,000 (£38,000), had been stolen. It was the biggest insect heist in history.
