March 29, 2011

Bronx Zoo Cobra Still Missing But Now Tweeting

There has been a great deal in the press lately about the missing cobra at the Bronx Zoo.  It slithered out of it's cage last Friday and is now hiding somewhere inside the zoo's large reptile house.  Zoo officials seem certain there is no way the venomous asp, native of Egypt, has escaped into the wild (aka New York City).  However, yesterday afternoon, an account appeared on Twitter called "BronxZoosCobra" which seems to indicate otherwise. In less than 24 hours, he's racked up 30,000 followers on Twitter, helped along by the fact that "Bronx Zoo" and "cobra" were the top searches on Google yesterday.

From the asps' first tweet thanking the animals of "Madagascar" for their inspiration, this snake-on-the-lam has proved to have a sly sense of humor.  In other tweets, he asks if anyone knows where Rebecca Black lives and marvels at the Temple of Dendur on a trip to the Met.  I think my favorite was the tweet where he gave away his actual location:  "You can find me right in front of Original Ray's Pizza".  LOL--one thing is clear....this snake is definitely a New Yorker.