Video: Chinese man awoke with live gecko curled up inside his ear canal

A man from Guangzhou in southern China awoke from a snooze to a strange sensation. First, there was severe itching in his ear and then, to his horror, the man, who is in his 30s, could feel something moving inside his head.

Man believes a cockroach has crawled in his ear

As reported by the Deccan Chronicle, at first the man believed a cockroach had crawled into his ear and he visited Dr. Tu Bo at a hospital at Jinan University. The doctor then shone a light on the situation, only to discover it was a live Gecko lizard, curled up cozily inside the ear canal.

At first, doctors attempted to remove the lizard using tweezers, but every time they tried to grab it, the gecko squirmed away. Doctors then used a sedative to anesthetize the gecko and managed to safely remove it from his ear with a pair of long pliers. According to a report by UPI, the whole procedure took around five minutes.

Gecko left its tail behind in the patient’s ear

However, while the gecko was alive and well after its removal, the doctors didn’t get it all – the lizard was missing its tail. Doctors then attempted to find the tail in the patient’s ear but to no avail.

As various species of gecko shed their tails when scared, or as a method of self-defense, the doctors are now theorizing that the gecko may have lost it before it got stuck in the patient’s ear canal.

However, possibly it shed the tail in its panic when they initially tried to remove the gecko from the man’s ear.

According to Live Science, besides shedding their tails, some recently discovered gecko species can shed all their scales in an effort to protect themselves from predators.

There was no report as to what happened to the hapless gecko after it was removed from the patient’s ear, or whether the tail is still down in his ear canal somewhere.

However, the Video below shows the poor little critter in a plastic bag, presumably dead.

Strange critters crawling into people’s ears

This isn’t the first time something strange has ended up inside someone ear canal, however, as there have been reports of flesh-eating worms and fruit-fly larva living cozily inside people’s ears.

There have also been horror stories of spiders living in people’s ears. As reported by the New York Post in June, a woman in India visited her doctor after suffering a severe headache, along with a tingling sensation in her head. She had awoken after taking a nap on her patio when she also felt a painful blockage in her ear.

When doctors examined her, they discovered a spider inside her ear canal and used a light to gently coax the spider out of her ear. Anyone feeling brave enough can watch the spider strolling out into the light in the video below.