Dominic Monaghan's doctor bitten by bullet ant during wildlife show

Lord Of The Rings star Dominic Monaghan's new reality adventure show Dom's Wild Things was so hazardous the medic who accompanied him on his journey to find the most dangerous creatures was left bed-ridden after he was bitten by a bullet ant in South America.

The actor came out of the first series of the show unscathed, despite coming face-to-face with some of the creepiest animals on earth - but his doctor sidekick wasn't quite as lucky.

Monaghan tells WENN, "I did alright. I got murdered by mosquitoes and black flies and sand flies and leeches sucking my blood, because their saliva features a coagulant, which means you bleed for, like, a day and a half, which ruins your clothes... but my medic got bitten by a bullet ant, which is one of the most painful insect stings in the world and he spent about a day and a half in bed."

Monaghan is now hoping to land a second season of the show, but he admits his hazardous adventures have proved too much for film insurance companies.

He adds, "My agent called me up and said the insurance company are extremely worried about the job... I don't think they were ever incredibly happy about what I was doing. A lot of film studios were nervous about me doing what I was doing, thinking I was probably gonna get killed doing it.

"I can understand that - in each episode I put myself in life-threatening situations; we deal with cobras, vipers, rattlesnakes and scorpions, bees and wasps - all of which will certainly send you to the hospital and some of which can kill you and you might need to get limbs amputated... I'm there in the midst of it all, getting my hands dirty."

But it was the experience of a lifetime - and one trip to Laos brought him in contact with the world's largest spider, the Giant Huntsman.

He coos, "It's an animal that evokes a very immediate knee-jerk response in most people and it ended up being an experience that took me into an underground cave that is only accessible through rivers, and the locals said they weren't aware if any human had ever gone as far as we had gone."

Dom's Wild Things debuts on Channel 5 in the U.K. on 9 November (12) and airs in the U.S. early in 2013.