TAMPA, Fla. — While competing for a $1 million prize fund in the Panamanian jungle, Tampa man Sean Jacobs made a disgusting discovery:

Roasted cockroach tastes just like shrimp-fried rice.

“It was like a little black chicken nugget,” Jacobs said, noting this wasn’t the only weird food he consumed in the name of survival. “We’re boiling hermit crabs, and we’re drinking the broth, and then we’re burning off ocean water to get the salt. ... None of it was things that you see on a downtown Tampa menu, I’ll say that.”

In the new season of Netflix’s “Outlast: The Jungle,” Jacobs is one of 16 strangers taking part in a “high-stakes survival experiment.” The reality TV competition, which boasts actor Jason Bateman as one of its executive producers, returned with a new location on Wednesday.

The show requires contestants to split into teams and work together to survive. The group that lasts the longest gets to share the prize money.

While the first two seasons of “Outlast” took place in Alaska, “Outlast: The Jungle” sends hopefuls deep into the tropical forests of Panama. It features several Floridians, including Myakka City marketing professional Morgan Colburn and former Pittsburgh Steelers tight end Wes Saunders, who now lives in Miami Beach.

Joining Jacobs from the Tampa Bay region: Ruskin’s Pharaoh Gayles, a wildlife educator and champion alligator wrestler.

In it for the gators

Gayles, 35, is based in Ruskin. As the founder of Pharaoh’s Wildlife Kingdom, he travels around Florida to bring educational animal demonstrations to schools, birthday parties, festivals, fairs and private events.

“Ever since I was a little kid, if we ever went on a trip, I was always the one leaving the family and getting lost in the woods, trying to come back with a snake or a turtle or a lizard,” he said.

Born and raised in Buffalo, New York, Gayles spent about six years as a wildlife manager in the Miccosukee Indian Village in the Everglades. He also studied alligator wrestling, a “bare-handed capture technique developed by the Miccosukee and Seminole Indians of Florida.”

Gayles currently has a quarter-acre of land in Ruskin. The prize money from “Outlast” could help him achieve his dream of opening an alligator rescue and educational zoo.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” he said.

He hopes viewers at home can get inspired to spend time outdoors, whatever that looks like for them.

“Bushcraft skills are very important,” he said. “I think it’s important that people can see others get connected with nature.”

Channeling his inner child

Sean Jacobs, 39, co-founded Jacobs Fitness in Tampa. He also created the Ubuntu Society, a nonprofit that works on volunteer projects with existing grassroots groups in East Africa.

Jacobs said the functional fitness business he created with his wife prepared him for “Outlast” in multiple ways.

“My gym just doesn’t have great AC. So right now I’m sitting here talking, it’s 85 in the building, and I’m not sweating,” he said. “The environment was so similar to Florida that I felt like I was kind of at home.”

Jacobs, who holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology, said working with a diverse range of clients helped him to prepare for the social and strategic aspects of the show.

“I’m kind of a chameleon when it comes to that, as far as building relationships, because not everybody that comes in the gym or is a client virtually ... has the same personality as me,” he said. “Maybe I’m not the most survival-skilled. I may be more of a jack-of-all-trades in that aspect.”

Jacobs had no idea where he would be sent for the competition. With only about a month’s notice before his departure, he packed on 20 pounds.

“I was changing training. I was pounding food,” he said. “I’m already carrying a lot of muscle mass. I had to carry more fat than usual, because I was like, ‘I don’t know what we’re going to be able to find out there.’”

Once he got to the jungle, much of his energy was spent on finding and boiling water, foraging for edible plants, making a shelter and snacking on sour cane plants that reminded him of Warheads.

“Literally everything I ate on the island was something I had never eaten before,” he said.

Above all, Jacobs was committed to having fun.

“I‘m basically someone who refuses to do anything if I’m not having a good time,” he said. “I’m almost 40, but I have the enthusiasm of my 12-year-old self, and I hope I never lose that.”

Watch ‘Outlast: The Jungle’

The first six episodes of “Outlast: The Jungle” premiered on Wednesday, with two others following on June 17.

©2026 Tampa Bay Times. Visit tampabay.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.