Singer Katie Melua has been left horrified after learning a recent hearing issue was caused by a spider living in her ear.

The Closest Thing to Crazy hitmaker had been suffering an irritating scratching sound in her ear for a week so she visited a medic.

When the doctor checked, he found a tiny salticidae - also known as a 'jumping spider' - living in her ear, and Melua believes the mite came from a pair of headphones she wore during a flight.

She has posted photographs of the critter on Instagram.com, telling fans, "Basically I used these old in-ear monitors to block out sound on a flight, little spider must have been in them and crawled inside my ear and stayed there for the week. It was no hassle at all, apart from the occasional shuffling noises.

"Though the thing looked terrifying up-close on the doctor's camera, once he took him out (using a micro-hoover) it was pretty small, and now it's in this little test tube, alive and seemingly fine."

A spokeswoman for Melua adds, "The ear specialist said he'd never in his career taken out a live bug before. Plenty of dead ones. When it was out it was pretty tiny. Katie kept it in the test tube and released it in her garden when she got home."