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Date: Wed, 31 Jul 1996 22:51:00 -0400
From: Judy Johnson <jjohnson@asrr.arsusda.gov>
Subject: Bugs in the Ear

Contributing to a thread on insects entering ones ear and either chewing through ones head or mearly driving one insane Harrison Sherwood gave us:

[much about entire day spent with annoying live something in his ear snipped]

>Victory! It was out!
>
>I looked around for it, and when I found it, dangling malevolently from my
curtains,
>I nearly puked from fear. Spider. About the size of a quarter.

To which I replied:

Re. all the recent nonsense about bugs in the ear, it is patently impossible for insects and/or other arthropods to enter one ear and chew through to the other. Not only does the FAQ list tell us that, but a little logic should as well (Try to trace a straight course for such a journey, without going through bone.) There are a number of flies that feed as maggots in the living tissues of vertebrates. While none seek humans out as their normal host, people are occasionally parasitized by accident. Usually their entry is through wounds, or the mucous membrane of bodily orifices (yeech!). I have yet to find a reference for fly maggots in human ears. That doesn't mean it couldn't or hasn't happened, but such an infestation would be limited to soft tissue around the outer ear. (Check out any medical entomology textbook for this information, I'm going by the 6th ed. of "Herms's Medical Entomology", by James and Harwood, 1969, Macmillan, New York.)

Yes, insects and other arthropods do wander into people's ears, but not to lay eggs. The human ear can be an effective trap for small critters; the poor little dears simply blunder in and are trying to find their way out by frantically scratching around. The effect to the owner of the ear can be quite maddening, however. As an example, I offer a documented case of a fairly famous explorer getting a "bug in his ear." This is not to try to refute the FAQ, but to suggest it as a possible source for the explorer part of the legend.

John Hanning Speke, remembered for tracking down the source of the Nile River, recorded that the interior of his tent "became covered with a host of small black beetles, evidently attracted by the glimmer of the candle." Exhausted, Speke went to sleep with them crawling over his person, only to be awakened by one of the "horrid little insects" struggling into his ear. Trying to remove the beetle only pushed it in further. The beetle continued into Speke's ear as far as possible, and then "he began with exceeding vigour like a rabbit in a hole, to dig violently away at my tympanum. The queer sensation this amusing measure excited in me is past description. . . . What to do I knew not." After trying to flush the critter out with melted butter, Speke tried to dig it out with his penknife, succeeding only in killing it and increasing the damage to his ear. Infection followed, distorting his face and causing boils. "For many months the tumour made me almost deaf, and ate a hole between the ear and the nose, so that when I blew it, my ear whistled so audibly that those who heard it laughed. Six or seven months after this accident happened, bits of the beetle--a leg, a wing, or parts of the body--came away in the wax." (Quotes are from Speke's journals, as referred in "Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton" by Edward Rice, 1990, Scribner's, New York)

Speke obviously survived his ordeal, and just as obviously, the beetle didn't burrow through to the other side, so the FAQ remains correct. The incident was given a fairly prominent place in the movie "Mountains of the Moon". I know the legend predates the movie, so I'm not suggesting it as a source. The story was probably better-known to Speke's contemporaries, because of the explorer's popularity. This may have been a source for at least part of the legend.

Finally, in reference to Harrison Sherwood's somewhat bizarre story, IMHO, the poor spider you accused of being the culprit was merely an innocent bystander. Perhaps just hanging out on the curtains, hoping to snack on a gnat or moth recently flushed out of someone's ear. Not that you didn't have something in there, or that it wasn't supremely annoying, I'm trying to imagine a spider the size of a quarter hiding out in someone's ear. Just how big is your head?

Judy Johnson
(Hey, I thought girls were 'sposed to be afraid of bugs!)