Nearly three years after taking over The Late Show from David Letterman, Stephen Colbert finally welcomed the first animal expert back on the CBS program, Friday. But… he might regret that decision.
The 53-year-old talk show host sat down with Nathaniel “Coyote” Peterson, the animal expert and adventurer known for his popular YouTube show Brave Wilderness — for which he travels the globe letting animals and insects bite and sting him.
It was only fitting, then, that Peterson brought an animal along to bite Colbert.
“I was told you wanted to enter the bite zone,” Peterson said, before pulling out the green anole lizard. “What we have here is…arguably one of the most painful lizards in the world. They can be found all throughout Florida and maybe even here in New York because they often times escape as people’s pets.”
He then asked Colbert, “If you’re brave enough, and I know you are, you’re actually going to be bitten by one of these anoles.”
Colbert was game, though he was nervous. “I wanted to do something that wasn’t very painful,” he said. “Lizards don’t really bother me but is it going to hurt?”
“That’s yet to be determined,” Peterson said. “How are you going to endure the pain. It’s all on you. You have to mentally prepare yourself. When I do this and I’m bit and stung by things, I kind of walk and pace behind the cameras before I actually go through with it.”
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The former Colbert Report host didn’t do that. Instead, he stayed seated — looking directly into the camera before saying, “I’m Stephen Colbert and I’m about to enter the bite zone with the green anole.”
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That’s when Peterson put the lizard up to Colbert’s ear — because “the ear is the best place to be bit by this thing, then it just kind of hangs there like an earring,” according to Peterson.
As for the bite, Colbert handled it well. “Well done. Well done,” Peterson said.
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert airs weeknights (11:35 p.m.) on CBS.