I thought I would share this.
I was recently asked by a lady in Ohio if I could identify the seashell the
doctor took out of her husband's ear. They were at the beach eight months
previously and she thought that a bit long for an ocean critter to hang
around in someone's ear, so she suspected it might be a land snail. When
she sent me the picture it looked like one of the myriad of forms of
Cochlicopa lubrica (M|ller, 1774) or the Slippery Teardrop Snail (according
to Abbott's Compendium of Landshells). As to how this minute garden pest
found its way into her husband's ear -- well, your guess is as good as mine.
I didn't ask for the shell as I imagine they wanted to keep it as an oddity.
But it would have been great to have a data slip that gave the locale as
"so-and-so's left ear."
Tom Eichhorst in New Mexico, (USA)