Deadly Snake Escapes

Deadly Snake Escapes

A venomous Egyptian cobra has gone missing at the Bronx Zoo, in New York City

By Kelli Plasket

Do you speak Parseltongue? The snake language may only exist in the world of Harry Potter, but it sure would be useful for zookeepers in New York City this week. On March 25, the Bronx Zoo shut down and secured its Reptile House after zookeepers discovered that an Egyptian cobra had slipped out of its private enclosure and disappeared.

The missing cobra is just a few months old, 20 inches long and pencil thin. Egyptian cobras are most commonly found in Northern Africa. The snakes can eventually grow to up to 9.8 feet long. It is one of the most venomous, or poisonous, species of snake. A cobra's bite can be deadly if not treated properly. However, cobras aren't likely to attack humans unless they feel threatened. Zookeepers are confident that the missing snake is contained in a nonpublic, isolated area of the building.

"Right now, it's the snake's game," Bronx Zoo director Jim Breheny says in a statement on the zoo's website. "At this point, it's just like fishing; you put the hook in the water and wait. Our best strategy is patience, allowing her time to come out of hiding."

The cobra is likely hiding in a warm, closed-in space. The snakes can live for a long time without food or water, so it could be days or weeks before the snake comes out of hiding in search of food, experts say.

Snake Around Town

In the meantime, an anonymous Twitter user is having some fun with the missing cobra. The unidentified user created an account with the username "BronxZoosCobra" on Twitter, a social networking site. By Wednesday, it had more than 140,000 followers. The account documents the snake's fictitious adventures exploring New York City. "I want to thank those animals from the movie Madagascar. They were a real inspiration," the "snake" posted.

According to the updates, the cobra has already visited several New York tourist spots, including the Empire State Building and the Museum of Natural History. "Holding very still in the snake exhibit at the Museum of Natural History. This is gonna be hilarious!" read one post. And how does a snake with no thumbs or Internet access manage to update a Twitter page? The snake's explanation: "Ever heard of an iPhone? Duh."

Max- Cobras are already very dangerous, but this deadly cobra just escaped from the zoo! The zookeepers found this cobra missing, while it started to crawl around New York City.   This cobra, which is an Egyptian cobra, is deadly. It can grow to a long size, and it’s deadly. But it doesn’t bite people when it saw them; it only bites when they feel threatened. So I’m not really sure how many people did it bite. The cobra also went to many famous buildings, and it kept hiding a few days.   Some users also started to use blogs to talk about the missing cobra. Those blogs had some fun with the cobra and many people saw it.   After the cobra escaped, it can take a few weeks to find that cobra and take it back to the zoo. Because the places that cobras live have a lot of food and water, so it may take a long time to see the cobra come out of the hiding place because of hunger.

Also, after reading this article, happy April Fools Day(this article isn't fake)!