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This YouTube star lets bugs and snakes bite him for clicks

This segment originally aired Jan. 4, 2016, on VICE News Tonight on HBO.

Nathaniel “Coyote” Peterson makes nature documentaries, but the 5 million subscribers to his “Brave Wilderness” YouTube channel don’t want to see animals. They want to see animals bite him.

Peterson’s gambit began with a porcupine. He intentionally got himself quilled, and the resulting video received many more views than his previous videos had, he said.

“We said to ourselves, ‘Wow, why do people like to see me in pain?’ Peterson told VICE News Tonight correspondent Elle Reeve on a visit to the Guayacán Rainforest Reserve in Costa Rica. “And then somehow it started to transcend into this bite and sting onslaught.”

Peterson is preparing for the most painful insect sting in the world: the bullet ant. The sting is said to feel like a bullet wound and hurt for 24 hours. Peterson hopes at least 10 million people will watch him get stung.