MARCH REARVIEW

It sounds like a scene straight out of a horror movie — a man is trapped inside a coffin-sized box and cockroaches are feasting upon him — but for animal enthusiast and thrill-seeker John LaMedica (a.k.a. Jungle John), this challenge was simply a new and exciting undertaking.

Wearing only a thin pair of bicycle shorts for protection, the former zookeeper-turned-performer submerged himself into a translucent coffin-sized box filled with 20,050 hissing Giant Madagascan cockroaches for the television show "Guinness World Records: Primetime." The episode aired in December.

Although Jungle John was able to walk away from the experience in relatively good health, he did have "war wounds." The critters did their share of scratching and biting.

"They didn’t feed the cockroaches for four, five and even six days, so that they would not (defecate) on me and that turned out to be a mistake," he said. "I was the only food they had seen in four or five days. Besides being scratched they left me with welts up and down my legs. I looked like I was sunburned."

Why would anyone want to cover themselves with cockroaches?

"It started off as a joke," Jungle John recalls. "A friend told me, ‘You need to do something to get national exposure. Why don’t you cover yourself with cockroaches?’ That’s what I did."

Before going his TV debut, Jungle John made a trial run, covering himself with 6,000 cockroaches that he purchased from a reptile store in the Bronx, N.Y.

While the live television appearance may have been uncharted waters for Jungle John, being on stage is not.

After a seven-year stint as supervisor for the Brandywine Zoo in Wilmington, Del., Jungle John opened up Jungle John Entertainment in 1988. He has performed at numerous parties and has been the featured act at a number of minor league baseball games in Wilmington.

So what is up next for Jungle John? He says he is working on a routine in which he spits a cricket into the air and his son catches it in midair.

ZURICH, Switzerland — According to a Reuters news story in January, a Swiss jet headed to Cancun, Mexico, was grounded for a day while crews searched for a mouse on board.

About 200 passengers were stranded overnight when a Swiss aviation conglomerate banned the charter jet from taking off until the mouse was found. The critter appeared in the cabin during the incoming flight from the Dominican Republic

Pest management professionals are aware of the safety risks involved if the mouse chewed on electric cables.

Fortunately for the stranded passengers, the dead mouse was found 24 hours later, allowing the jet to take off.

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