WATCH: Will Dingo survive the night in the ‘Cage of Death’ with four snakes?

South Africa’s very own crocodile hunter, Dingo Dinkelman, has captivated wildlife lovers with his humorous and charismatic personality, and his extremely daring ventures.

Dinkelman’s adventures bring back memories of late Australian zookeeper, wildlife expert and television personality, Steve Irwin. Irwin was known across the globe as The Crocodile Hunter, mesmerising audiences with his daring escapades and endearing personality.

Dinkelman’s wildlife adventures first gained international attention in 2017 when he won the Cell C and Blink Pictures #BreakTheNet (#BTN) competition featuring a one-minute promo of him catching a crocodile.

Dinkelman is no stranger to interacting with animals, especially those with a more “difficult personality”. His father worked for the wildlife authority in Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu-Natal, where he grew up.

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Today, he is an award-winning Discovery Channel and YoutTube Wildlife presenter, and currently hosting one of the fastest growing YouTube channels in South Africa, reaching more than three million viewers a month.

‘Cage of Death‘

In Dinkelman’s latest adventure, the Cage of Death, he spends five nights sleeping in a secure enclosure alongside a selection of the world’s most dangerous animals. Some of his “roommates” so far have included a Nile crocodile, a green anaconda and a reticulated python.

This week, he spends some quality time with four rattlesnakes who have been bred in captivity. During filming, Dinkelman explains that there is currently no anti-venom for a rattlesnake bite in South Africa. If you get bitten, the only thing your doctor will be able to do for you is to treat your symptoms.

He is full of jokes during the live stream, the “Dingo crew” keeping a close eye on the whereabouts of the snakes to make sure they don’t get too close to Dinkelman. He jokes that they better not lose focus as they need to warn him if the snakes get too close to his “twigs and berries”.

When asked if he managed to get some shut-eye, Dinkelman told The Citizen that he did not get any sleep because the snakes started to move around when he turned the white lights off.

“The infrared lights are not visible by snakes so they moved around like they normally would during the night. I ended up having multiple snakes under my bed throughout the night.”

When asked what drives him to put himself in these dangerous situations, Dinkelman said he wanted to show people that these animals are not evil, ugly monsters that are out to kill us.

“They are an intricate part of nature and it is possible to share this planet with them and to co-exist alongside them. If I can live in a cage in close proximity to deadly, dangerous animals, how much more can we do it out in the wild?”

Watch the live stream from the filming of the episode below:

The full video of this episode will be released on his YouTube channel on Monday 18 August at 6pm.