Wow, it's amazing to me that this is not an isolated incident!
Sure is! Once I get the ant out, I will definitely get some non-marking 'painters tape', or non-marking 'kapton tape' to cover over the head-phone socket. That should stop repeat incidents in the future. I'm currently watching a youtube video for disassembly of the 10.1. The procedure doesn't appear to be too difficult, but definitely time-consuming and tedious. But utmost care will be needed with disconnecting connectors - as I believe that inexperience and haste could lead to damaged connectors and wires etc.
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Update: I disassembled my 8010 tablet today. It really is necessary to pry things open carefully, and don't rush, otherwise it's possible to break tabs. Also important to follow the video instructions (on youtube) carefully. One surprising thing was that the final step of disassembly - for separating the front glass from the LCD panel - involved using a screw-driver to rip out internal plastic stubs, which seemed odd to me. But I confirm that it's absolutely necessary to do it. But the nice thing is that it won't compromise the performance or structural integrity of the tablet. I got the ant out, and needed to use alcohol-based commercial eye-glass micro-fibre cloths to wipe the imprint/marks from the ant off the inner part of the glass, and the LCD screen. After re-assembly, I noticed 1 speck of dust/dirt under the glass, which left a dark 'dot'.
Update #2 : I disassembled again, and wiped off the speck of dirt from the inner front glass that I had overlooked earlier. Actually, I used micro-fibre cloths to meticulously wipe both the inner glass and the LCD panel surfaces, and blew air lightly over the surfaces before re-assembly. And this time, I powered up the tablet before putting the back cover on. This was to check the lit-up LCD display for any dust particles between the glass and LCD. Everything is nice again. And now I have kapton tape covering the audio-socket, and also covering some even smaller hole - could be microphone hole?