A real-life Dr Doolittle has gone viral after revealing he can ‘speak’ to snakes.
Animal lover Alexandre Rocha regularly shares photos of creatures and critters with his 20,300 followers.
One snap even shows the 29-year-old with a tarantula in his hair.
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But despite his love of the animal kingdom, Alexandre says sometimes it takes a while for certain species to warm up to him.
And while he has found that telling a human to “calm down” when they’re agitated tends to have the opposite effect, it does work with animals.
“Snakes don’t love me right away – they get agitated,” Alexandre, from Brazil, told What’s The Jam.
“I will tell them, ‘Calm down, I’m not going to hurt you’, and then they just calm down.
“They become like kittens.
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“Comparing me to Dr Dolittle is funny but I like it.
“The truth is that in real life, when dealing with anything – animals or people – we need to be present in the moment with them.”
Alexandre has always felt a special connection to nature as he grew up in a home which was donated to his family by a farmer.
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They lived on the land and Alexandre, who works as a gold miner, has fond memories of playing in the woods and watching bugs.
The family also spent a lot of time in the wild as they didn’t have a bathroom with a shower, so they would often use a nearby river to wash.
Alexandre’s grandfather used to catch snakes and his father also caught animals.
He explains that he wanted to follow in their footsteps and make them proud by being brave, handling animals.
One of his videos, which attracted nearly 67,000 views, shows him lying down by a waterfall with his eyes closed while a baby alligator climbs all over him.
He said: “I grew up understanding that I needed to be like them [my father and grandfather].
“After all, parents are mirrors for their children and children usually follow in their footsteps.
“I needed them to feel proud of my courage.
“Where I grew up made it much easier for me to get in touch with animals.”
The most poisonous animals that Alexandre has dealt with include coral snakes, rattlesnakes, a jararaca snake and exotic frogs.
He has had two dangerous encounters which he remembers well – one involving an alligator chase and the other involving a rather nasty snake bite.
He said: “I was at home and a snake came into my bedroom.
“When I got out of bed, it got scared, bit me, and my foot swelled. But it was nothing serious.
“The other encounter was the worst one I have had.
“It was a mother alligator with her babies at night.
“I saw the water move and she came right towards me because she was in shock that I was there.
“I ran away as if there was no tomorrow.”
Alexandre dreams of seeing an elephant and a lion in person.
And he believes that people should not fear animals, despite some being dangerous.
He said: “Animals are not bad – they just defend themselves.
“It’s not their fault that they have lethal poisons, and it is no one’s fault for being the way they are – it’s just nature.”
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