Mini Urban Legend: Ants in the Brain

In July 2009, an urban legend was circulated online through emails, and this urban legend contained a warning about ants in the brain.

Apparently, around this time, a little boy who was enjoying some sweets but happened to be eating his snacks close to naptime. His tiredness outweighed his love for the sweets and he fell asleep with the sugar-treats on him. As he lay napping, sugar still melting in his saliva and with his candy in reach, ants detected the sweet treats and started to crawl around him to get their fair share of sugar. Some of the ants crawled inside the sleeping toddler and many crawled right inside his ears.

The boy awakened after his short rest but several hours later, his ears began to itch a bit and he complained that his face felt itchy.

He was taken to a doctor but the doctor couldn't find a reason for the itchy discomfort the little boy was complaining about. The doctor decided to take an x-ray of the boy and when the results were examined, the doctor was horrified!

What the doctor saw in the x-ray was a group of live ants in the boy's skull. Apparently, the doctor couldn't operate right away because the ants were alive and moving around.

Needless to say, without the doctor being able to perform surgery, the little boy died.

This story was circulated with urgent warnings for people not to have food items in bedrooms or near places where they sleep - whether these be sweet treats or anything else. The sender of the story urged parents to never let their kids eat sweet items just prior to sleep times, for fear that ants would be attracted to the sweets.

All in all, a very creepy little tale, don't you think?

Can you pick out the obvious signs that it is an urban legend?