The missing serpent is likely younger than this one. The 20-inch female is an adolescent.
Missing since Friday, the slippery serpent has supposedly begun posting updates on Twitter about its adventures, under the name @BronxZoosCobra."Enjoying a cupcake at Magnolia Bakery," the cobra allegedly tweeted Tuesday afternoon. "This is going straight to my hips. Oh wait, I don't have hips. Yesss!"
The cobra seems to have headed from the Bronx straight to Manhattan. "Leaving Wall Street," read a tweet late Monday. "These guys make my skin crawl."
Overnight, the pseudo-snake picked up more than 50,000 followers for the parody Twitter feed. That's many more than the 40,000-plus followers attracted by Dan Sinker, the Chicago journalism professor whose @MayorEmanuel Twitter posts — supposedly from Rahm Emanuel, newly elected mayor of Chicago — earned him a book deal last week.
In reality, the 20-inch, pencil-thin Egyptian cobra, which zoo officials say is female and weighs less than three ounces, is likely hiding somewhere in the zoo's Reptile House after escaping from its enclosure Friday.
The venomous cobra is an adolescent and will likely come out of hiding when she is hungry.
The runaway cobra has inspired a sketch on The Daily Show, which showed a fake snake riding cabs around New York and vomiting in Times Square, and a Top Ten list on The Late Show of "Bronx Zoo Excuses: "No 2. We sent the snake to take out Qaddafi. You'll thank us later!"
Zoo officials did not respond to a request for comment on the Twitter parody. The zoo's Reptile House remains closed until the snake re-emerges.
"Right now, it's the snake's game. 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," Bronx Zoo director Jim Breheny said in a statement. "She will likely remain in hiding and not move until she feels completely secure."
Dangerous creatures on the loose aren't unknown in New York. Coyotes have been spotted in Central Park, and in 2003 a tiger named Ming was discovered living in an apartment in Harlem, with an alligator for a roommate.
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