You've probably heard this one. An earwig crawls into a lady's ear while she is asleep on a beach. She doesn't realize anything is wrong until she starts to have terrible pains. An x-ray analysis reveals the bug is burrowing through her brain and the poor victim is told the earwig will eventually emerge from the other ear. And that is just what happens. The bug comes out and the pain disappears. Life goes back to normal until the pain returns. Another x-ray is taken and the patient is given the devastating news. The earwig was a female and apparently pregnant because she laid eggs and all the freshly hatched little earwigs are now devouring her brain! An urban legend of course. Earwigs do not crawl into ears. But sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. Earwigs may not crawl into ears but spiders do.Â
A Greek physician had a visit from a patient who developed a strange feeling in her ear while out on a motorcycle ride. Upon looking into her ear, the physician was shocked to see first a spider web, and then its inhabitant apparently happily curled up in the warm surroundings. Recognizing that this was an epic moment he ran for his video camera and recorded the arachnid's hasty emergence from its new home. Don't think that this happens only in Greece. A similar event was recorded right here in Canada in Nova Scotia. A lady complained of a buzzing in the ear and feared that a fly had somehow flown in. Once again a stunned physician came face to face with spider. He initiated the usual treatment for bugs in the ear, namely squirting in water. It seems the spider didn't take kindly to this at all. It jumped out of the ear and ran down the patient's face. The episode culminated with the patient hyperventilating and running around the examination room yelling "Oh my God, Oh, my God." Could have been worse. Could have been a pregnant earwig.
