Rings star now lord of the spiders

Wild Things presenter Dominic Monaghan with fellow LOTR actor Billy Boyd pose with a tuatara on the show.

Series hosted by nature-obsessed actor Dominic Monaghan goes looking for where the wild things are

When Dominic Monaghan told his former boss, Sir Peter Jackson, that he was travelling to Laos to track down a new species of spider, there were serious questions raised about his sanity.

"Peter doesn't like spiders very much so when I told him what I was up to, all he could say was 'Dominic, you are mad!'," the English actor said.

The trip paid off though - the species was given the name Ctenus monaghani, in Monaghan's honour, and the trip was the start of a two-series television show, Wild Things with Dominic Monaghan.

And while most of his time here in New Zealand has been spent preoccupied with a certain precious gold ring, The Lord of the Rings star recently came back to his home away from home on a mission to find one of the largest - and heaviest - insects on earth, New Zealand's own Wetapunga for the start of the show's second season.

The travel adventure show has the nature-loving actor journeying around the world in search of the most dangerous and elusive creatures on the planet. Part David Attenborough, part exotic tour guide, Monaghan says it is a dream come true.

Adding to the fun, he teamed up with old friend - and fellow hobbit - Billy Boyd in the hunt for the giant weta. It is the first time the pair, who played Merry (Monaghan) and Pippen (Boyd) in the Jackson trilogy, have been together in New Zealand since the films were released.

Coming to New Zealand to open season two was a no-brainer for Monaghan.

"It might not be a place that's filled with the most deadly of animals, but it is a place filled with some of the most beautiful and bizarre animals. And it's a place we had such a great adventure in, and I hope one day I might live in New Zealand and bring up my family there."

Wild Things takes the actor to all corners of the world - anywhere he can find a creature to study, he can find a reason to travel. And that is exactly how the show originally started.

"For my vacations, I pick an animal I want to see, and then I book a holiday around it - I talk to locals about how I can find it and they tell me all about it and I try to get as close to that animal in the few weeks I have there.

"In the show I have to try and show people that you can interact with these animals, you can share space with these animals. A lot of people approach them with a sense of hysteria and I want to show that as long as you have respect for them, you can spend time with wildlife and it's okay. But I think I am a bit mad in general!"

Monaghan says he has always been a "butterfly-chaser". As a child, he'd fill his pencil case with dead bees that he would dissect and learn about when he got home. Growing up, he says, he kept frogs, slugs, snails and birds, but these days his list of pets includes pythons and a tarantula.

"I like the animals that are ignored, that are vilified, that are persecuted and the animals that have superpowers we could only dream of. I like the animals that tell us things we didn't know," he said, listing ants among his favourite creatures.

"This show lets me live out a lot of my dreams. I don't want people to handle cobras, but maybe if they see a snake on a country walk, they won't run in the opposite direction."

TV preview
What: Wild Things With Dominic Monaghan
When: 8 tonight
Where: BBC Knowledge