More Than 20 Cockroaches Found Living In Man’s Ear

Cockroaches gross out many people, especially when they find a cockroach or two inside their home. Even more people would probably be grossed out if they found out there were cockroaches living in their body. It may sound impossible, but this happened to one man over in China, according to Daily Mail.

Doctors in Guangdong Province took a look at a man, named Mr. Li, 19, and they discovered not one cockroach, but an entire family of cockroaches inside his ear. The young man went to see the doctors because he suffered from an earache. He complained of waking up in the middle of the night with his right ear itching and hurting.

The man waited until the morning to go to the hospital and doctors took a look at his ear. When they looked inside, that was when they found tiny cockroaches crawling around. Doctors said that they believed a female cockroach got inside the man’s ear weeks earlier and laid some eggs.

A doctor from the Chang’an Xiaobian Hospital in Dongguan said that they saw that an object that was shaped like an insect was blocking the man’s ear canal completely. Later on, a cockroach was extracted from his ear. The cockroach measured in at 0.3 inches long.

The female cockroach didn’t just lay a few eggs. It ended up giving birth to 25 baby cockroaches. It could have been worse, though; female cockroaches can carry a capsule that contains around 40 eggs, and it can take around three to four months for the baby cockroaches to develop into adults.

According to the Independent, Mr. Li was told by a doctor that if he waited to go to the hospital at a later date, then his ear would have been destroyed because of the cockroaches.

The baby cockroaches were about the size of small mosquitoes, and they were all removed. In total, Mr. Li had 26 cockroaches removed from his ear. The cockroaches may have been living inside his ear for awhile because it can take 24 to 70 days before cockroach eggs hatch.

Cockroaches are known for being resilient, as they are able to survive on limited resources. Asides from that, they can even remain active for weeks at a time without any food. Cockroaches tend to prefer conditions that are dark and warm, and they are usually nocturnal. This is why the cockroaches didn’t mind living in Mr. Li’s ear canal.

[Image by Justin Sullivan / Getty Images]