Science with bite

Mike Leahy in Vietnam.
Mike Leahy in Vietnam.
Some of the scariest creatures in the world are coming to get you. Nigel Benson meets Dr Mike Leahy, of Bite Me.

Dr Mike Leahy loves creepy-crawlies.

And the nastier they are, the better he likes them.

For the past year, he has been travelling the world searching for scary stars for National Geographic channel science adventure programe, Bite Me with Dr Mike Leahy.

"Most people are scared of things like crocs and snakes, but they're not what you should really be worrying about," Dr Leahy says.

"You can avoid them, or run away, or grab them.

"Whereas, rabies has a 100% fatality rate once you show the symptoms.

"Now, that's really scary."

"One of the scariest moments was when we were filming vampire bats in the Amazon rainforest.

"We were a long way from medical help and if one of those bats bites you you're probably going to get rabies.

"We had a cameraman up in a tree filming them.

"I was genuinely scared there."

As a safety precaution, a paramedic accompanied the crew.

The scariest creature Dr Leahy encountered was an insect or, more correctly, an arthropod (invertebrate animal).

"The giant centipede we filmed in Vietnam was the scariest for me, by far.

"They're about a foot long and venomous and very aggressive and they look very, very scary.

"We caught one and it was so strong.

"It just completely freaked me out."

"The Brazilian fire ant is another scary one.

"I was attacked by a nest of them and within 10 or 20 minutes they had to rush me to hospital.

"The wandering spider in Brazil is another one.

"They're the world's most venomous spider and they cause more deaths than any other spider."

"But, some of the scariest things are things we can't even see, like killer viruses.

"There are tiny parasites with toxoplasmosis that can literally brainwash you.

"There are also tapeworms and hookworms . . . there are some quite large animals living in the body."

And the countries to avoid if you don't want to be bitten by a creepy-crawlie?

"It depends on what you're scared of.

"For snake bites, it's Sri Lanka, because of the number of poisonous snakes and how close people live to them.

"For malaria, it would be Africa."

"To break one myth, though, Australia isn't really that dangerous for creatures, although the Aussies would try and have us all think otherwise.

"For example, only about 26 people have died of spider bites there in 100 years, but the last fatality was back in 1979.

"To put that in perspective, four people die a year in the UK through wasp stings." Dr Leahy spent the first decade of his working life as a mechanic.

"I was a bit rebellious when I was young and left school early.

"I loved cars and bikes, but I didn't like the way I was treated as a mechanic.

"So I went to university in 1989 and studied virology."

He completed a PhD in virology and molecular biology at Oxford University and had become an authority on influenza virus research when he won the role of presenter on BBC series Rough Science, in 1999.

But it was when he swallowed a tapeworm cyst and let it grow in his body for 11 weeks, for BBC series Bodysnatchers, that he really came to attention.

He finally passed the worm in front of a television audience of millions just days before his wedding.

"It's difficult to show people how fascinating and dangerous these creatures are.

"They're not just disease-causing entities.

"They're little animals in their own right."

He followed that up with Invasion of the Bodyscratchers, in which he donated his body to a variety of parasites, from head lice and Brazilian bot fly to potentially mind-altering toxoplasmosis and ticks.

Dr Leahy has also taken a few hits for Bite Me.

He was bitten by bullet ants in Brazil and stung by a box jellyfish in Australia.

He also encountered a 5-metre Burmese python in the Everglades and alligators down storm drains in Florida.

"When I first saw that python and saw the size of its eyes and realised I had to catch the thing . . . that was very scary," he says.

"There are some nasty things out there, but I find them fascinating.

"Although, while I might love the things, I'd hate to be bitten by them," he says.

"A universal truth with dangerous creatures is that they won't usually bother you if you don't bother them.

"The most likely way for people to get bitten is if they interfere with an animal."

Dr Leahy has strong ties with Dunedin.

He lived at Waikouaiti from 2003 to 2005, before returning to the Cotswalds, near Oxford, in England.

"In 2002, I did a BBC series called Rough Science on the West Coast and I just fell in love with New Zealand.

"So I moved here and lived out at Waikouaiti.

"But we decided to go back home when we started a family.

"Actually, we were looking at doing a programme in New Zealand, but we didn't in the end because we couldn't find anything scary enough," he says.

"You've had a few nasty things here like hydatids and giardia.

"Apart from that, you're looking at things like the cave weta and the katipo.

"New Zealand has to be one of the safest places on the planet."

Bite Me with Dr Mike Leahy is on the National Geographic channel (Sky digital 72) at 10.30am on Sundays during December.

 

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