A woman felt something in her ear. A spider was living in her ear canal.

The spider had been there for at least four days before a doctor found it, along with its molted exoskeleton

By Jonathan Edwards
November 1, 2023 at 5:00 a.m. EDT



A spider and its molted exoskeleton inside the ear canal of a 64-year-old woman who came to the doctor in April complaining of insomnia caused by an incessant rustling sound in her ear. (New England Journal of Medicine)

A 64-year-old woman in Taiwan woke up one morning in April and felt something rustling in her ear. When the noise persisted, she went to a clinic, where a doctor used a scope to peer into her ear canal.

The doctor took a photo of what he found and showed it to her.

“The patient screamed,” Tengchin Wang, director of the otolaryngology department at Show Chwan Memorial Hospital, said in a statement to The Washington Post.

The picture showed a tiny spider scurrying inside her left ear next to an exoskeleton it had shed. The doctor also shot a video, which became the centerpiece of a recent case study in the New England Journal of Medicine — and nightmare fuel for arachnophobes everywhere.

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Spider Lives in Woman’s Ear Canal for 4 Days

Inside Edition

Oct 30 2023

Using a suction tube, doctors removed a spider and a molted exoskeleton from a woman’s ear canal.