Presenting Tyne-Tees's new wildlife show isn't a job for the squeamish.

Anna Jarvis managed to overcome her fear of snakes - but spiders were almost too much to handle.

An unusual location was chosen when researcher Anna Jarvis auditioned for her first on-screen presenting role - a pet shop in Heaton. The makers of Home Jungles wanted to see how she'd cope with some of the unfamiliar creatures she'd be required to handle in the Tyne Tees Television series.

She did get to grips with snakes and lizards in the shop, but couldn't bring herself to do more than look at the spiders. "I didn't touch them," she admits.

But the audition served a double purpose. It eased her nerves about working with animals and proved to the programme-makers that she was up to the job.

So, in the same week that Charlotte Uhlenbroek embarks into the depths of the world's rainforests for her new BBC1 series Jungle, Jarvis will be going wild a little nearer home. She presents the six-part Home Jungles that meets the weird and exotic animals kept as pets by people in the North-East.

Cheshire-born Jarvis, who has worked as a researcher at Tyne Tees for the past year, has been converted to the animal cause and become the owner of her own bearded dragon lizard. So has her brother Dave, who directs the series and with whom she shares a home.

"We think the lizards are brother and sister too," she says. "I take it out of its tank and let it sit on my hand, and it sits on my lap. It's quite unexpected. They like being petted, and they play together."

The series will be discovering how to care for the creatures featured, including recreating the eco-systems of a tropical rainforest in the spare room or a coral reef in a wall.

In the first programme alone, she meets a man who keeps two giant Burmese pythons, a woman who's turned her backyard into a haven for terrapins and another woman who lives with 70 lizards.

"I've always wanted to have a go at presenting but never thought it would happen. Then they asked if I'd do a screen test for Home Jungles," says Jarvis, 24.

"My brother has always been interested in reptiles. They were something I was not scared of but not something I was fascinated with. Making the series, I just fell in love with them. It was amazing how much I fell in love with the animals."

Snakes remained a bit of a problem. She'd always refused to touch the one her brother had owned. But the lure of a on-camera job helped overcome her fears. "It was a great opportunity to present so I thought, 'I'm just going to have to hold snakes'. They turned out to be quite charming," she says.

She let two 18ft pythons slither around her feet but didn't attempt to pick them up as they were too heavy. "I stroke the head, which was as big as a dog's head," she adds.

Spiders were more of a problem. She was required to hold a tarantula for one episode. "You can see me shaking," she says. "It doesn't stay on my hand for long."

Jarvis hopes the programme will help overcome criticism that has been levelled at the reptile industry as she feels people who keep weird or exotic animals look after them well, and they're not such weird things to keep as pets. A bearded dragon lizard may look a bit fierce "but once you hold it and see it has a bit of character you can understand why people have them".

Terrapins and tortoises, she's fallen in love with. Parrots she thinks are cuddly and cute. She has yet to be convinced that spiders make good pets. "I can't understand why anyone would want to keep them because they don't do anything," she says.

What's surprised her are the owners, who cover all age ranges, although more women than men keep them.

Jarvis was raised in the country, so sheep and goats were the type of animals she encountered growing up. But she was a fan of wildlife programmes presented by David Attenborough.

Along with spiders, there's one other creature she has difficulty watching - herself on screen. "It's very surreal. It's nerve-racking, especially not having done any presenting before," she says.

* Home Jungles begins on Tyne Tees Television on Sunday at 5pm.

Published: 22/11/2003