India: Doctors remove 1,000 ants living inside girl's ear canal in grim video

Doctors have been left baffled by a nest of ants living inside a young girl's ear. Shreya Darji, 12, complained of an irritation in her ear, which turned out to be a breeding ground for thousands of ants.

Video footage shows doctors removing some of the ants from the young Indian girl's ear canal. They say that more than 1,000 ants have already been removed – and they are continuing to breed.

"I have done everything I can," said Sanjay Darji, father to Shreya. "I have taken her to the best doctors, but they have failed to solve the problem. I just hope things get better."

Doctors have tried to extract the ants in a number of ways, reports The Mirror, but the problem does not seem to be resolving itself. Shreya Darji says that at least 10 of the ants crawl out of her ears every day.

"We have conducted all possible scans on the child including an MRI and CT scan, but they are all normal," said Dr Jawahar Talsania, senior Ear, Nose and Throat surgeon. "We cannot find any abnormality in her ears. She doesn't experience any kind of pain - despite the ants biting her - and no damage has been found to the eardrums."

Jawahar says that he even tried to suffocate the ants by using liquid drops in the ear - but to no avail. He concedes that he is confused by the situation, although he does make it clear that the ants cannot be laying eggs inside the ear itself, because there is no queen in the nest.

Sanjay Darji said: "I'm worried about her future and how this will affect her studies. She is a brilliant child and she's already missed a lot of school."