Wild Things with Dominic Monaghan

Dominic faces one of his most challenging missions ever when he travels to the Land of the Rising Sun in pursuit of the giant Japanese salamander. Measuring over five feet in length and tipping the scales at a whopping 50 pounds, these massive amphibians live and hunt in cold, fast-moving remote mountain streams.

Dominic is in New Zealand on a mission to find one of the largest and heaviest insects on earth, the very rare and very cool giant wetapunga – the largest species of Wetas, found only in New Zealand. In a Wild Things twist, Dominic will be accompanied by his best friend and fellow hobbit, Billy Boyd. He and and Billy have not been in New Zealand together since they acted in The Lord of the Rings Trilogies. Together, Dom and Billy meet the incredible creatures endemic to the island and have a bit of fun in Hobbiton.

Dominic sails the mighty Amazon River on a mission to find the largest beetle on the planet – the titan beetle. This massive insect can grow up to seven inches in length and wields mandibles so strong and sharp, it can snap a pencil in half. To find this rare and elusive beetle he has to venture into the remote corners of the Brazilian jungle. Along the way, he wrestles with a mighty green anaconda he encounters on the river. Dominic also visits a remote village in the rainforest, where he befriends a group of small children and gets his face painted with the seeds of the achiote fruit, an ancient practice.

Dominic touches down in Costa Rica, home to more than a half-million known species of animal, including the extremely endangered, but incredibly beautiful, Lemur Leaf Frog – a thumbnail-sized master of camouflage. Dominic has to trek through the most remote stretches of Costa Rican jungle filled with predators to find the elusive creature. Meanwhile, he engages in a bit of fun playing on the monkey bars with a monkey and surfs the challenging Costa Rican coast.

Dominic heads to Kenya – the heart of safari country – to track down the incredible giant spitting cobra. Capable of blasting cornea-melting venom and delivering a bite lethal enough to kill more than 20 people, this might be his most dangerous mission to date. But the cobra isn’t his only worry on this adventure. While on his search, Dominic and cameraman Frank have their closest call ever when a six-ton elephant charges and almost tramples them after they stop to help perform life-saving field surgery on the wounded animal.

Dom faces his greatest fear when he must get up close and personal with hundreds of thousands of giant Malaysian honey bees – a formidable insect that lives in hives hundreds of feet above the jungle floor.

In an attempt to locate one of the most rare animals on the planet - the giant white Goliath beetle - Dom must infiltrate the black market insect trade in Cameroon. Travelling around the country, Dom gradually works his way down the network of middlemen and hunters, until he finally discovers the man who will lead him to the beetle.

Dom braves the remote wilderness of Namibia while on the hunt for Africa's largest, deadliest scorpion - parabuthus villosus, commonly known as the black hairy thick-tailed scorpion. This beast can not only kill a human but also spray its venom up to a metre. Dom's journey to find the scorpion takes him into spectacular desert scenery. Dom’s journey takes him into spectacular desert scenery, as he hikes up rugged mountain trails and across vast sand seas. On the way he survives a violent thunderstorm and flash floods; treads in the footprints of dinosaurs; and encounters a rock monitor, a meercat dining on a scorpion, a solifuge, a whip snake, and the lethally venomous horned adder. Dom also gets to meet an amazing array of different scorpions, including, eventually, the nastiest of the lot.

Dom travels from the snake-infested rice paddies of Vietnam’s Mekong Delta to a crocodile filled lake in search of one of the world’s most dangerous aquatic insects – the giant water bug.