Your ears are cockroach heaven and that’s why they keep crawling in there ‘The smell that emanates from the ear is attractive to the cockroach.’
By Alessandra Potenza@ale_potenza Jun 6, 2018, 9:00am EDT /cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/59965237/acastro_180605_12645_0001.0.jpg)
The news seems to arrive every few months, sticking in your head like a nightmare that left you drenched in sweat: yet another person found a cockroach in their ear. It happened to a Florida woman just last month: a cockroach crawled inside her ear while she was sleeping, and she lived with the bug lodged there for nine days before it was removed. Then last week, another Florida resident went through the same ordeal. This time, the roach allegedly laid its eggs before dying. So, why does this keep happening? Why do cockroaches wriggle themselves inside people’s ears, where they’ll almost certainly meet their death?
First of all, cockroaches like to go around during the night, which coincidentally is when people sleep. So by virtue of just lying there motionless, we become likely victims. Cockroaches also like small, warm, humid places. And ears qualify as all of the above. “By going into the ear, that’s like a safe place to eat or rest,†says Coby Schal, an entomologist at North Carolina State University. That’s right: “a safe place to eat.†Roaches might wander inside our ears in search of a tasty snack.
See, cockroaches are attracted by certain types of chemicals called volatile fatty acids, which are released by fermented foods like bread and beer, Schal says. And just like cheese, our earwax radiates these cockroach-wooing chemicals as well. “The smell that emanates from the ear is attractive to the cockroach,†Schal tells The Verge.
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https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/6/17429138/cockroaches-crawling-inside-ears-infections
