I was getting ready to wrap up my brief photo shoot at a local garden this afternoon when I happened to spot this interesting looking insect. Fortunately I had my macro lens on my camera and I had my tripod as well. I maneuvered as well as I could to frame the first shot and this is how I composed the image in the camera. I did a few tweaks in Photoshop Elements but did not crop at all. I cropped the second image slightly as I tried to move in a little closer. The eyes are in better focus, but I lost the sharper focus on the body.
I hope to figure out eventually what kind of insect he is, but for the moment I like the way the photos turned out.
UPDATE: Thanks to Jeremy Sell’s identification skills, I am pretty confident this is a Western Leaf-Footed Bug (Leptoglossus clypealis). Check out his blog at thelifeofyourtime.wordpress.com.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 
I’m pretty sure it’s an assassin bug. Nasty critters. Don’t try to pick one up–they bite, deeply.
Thanks, Gary, for identifying the bug for me. I tried to pin down the specific type of assassin bug, but there are a lot of different kinds. The name makes the bug sound a little sinister and the more I read about it the more the name seems to fit. I learned a new term today while researching the assassin bug–“extra-oral digestion (EOD).” Essentially assassin bugs begin the digestive process by injecting a lethal saliva into their victim. Enzymes in that saliva predigest and liquify the tissues so they can be sucked out. Apparently that permits the assassin bug to take on prey bigger than itself. I think I am too big for him to predigest, but virtually all websites warn that these bugs can (as you warned) deliver a very painful bite.
We have things shaped like this in north east we call them Stink Bugs best to scoop them up and kill with soapy water they say and if you squish ours they smell like almond
Here in the DC area the stink bugs (which were really bad last year) are smaller and not so elongated as this bug was.
OK
We have two different colored ones(in NH) and growing up as a child in this same area, I never saw one. I think I started seeing them in the 90’s
Thanks
This is a leaf-footed bug (Hemiptera: Coreidae), and it looks like a western leaf-footed bug (Leptoglossus clypealis). More abundant in the west, but also present in the east.
Although these bugs can emit foul odors, the common name “stink bug” normally refers to members of the family Pentatomidae.