Finally: Missing Bronx Zoo Cobra Has Been Captured

Is this the end of the line for the missing Bronx Zoo cobra? Zoo officials summoned media to a mysterious briefing this afternoon, but the topic was not immediately divulged. However, sources say the cobra has in fact, been captured.

Zoo officials have said all along that they are confident the 20-inch, venomous snake is lurking somewhere inside the building its habitat is enclosed in but conceded that finding it would be difficult. The zoo’s Reptile House closed last Friday after zoo workers searched but did not find the Egyptian cobra.

Zoo officials say the creature isn’t large enough to strangle anyone, but its venom is extremely deadly. A bite would be lethal to humans inside of 15 minutes.

In less than a week, the snake has become the stuff of urban legend. Someone even started pretending to be the cobra and was tweeting up a storm on Twitter. The snake’s first tweet: “I want to thank those animals from the movie ‘Madagascar.’ They were a real inspiration.”

The cobra currently has more than 203,000 followers on Twitter.

The snake’s last tweet was posted at around 2:30 p.m. and said, “If you see a bag of peanuts inexplicably moving along the ground at Yankee Stadium today. Just ignore it. It’s probably nothing.”

The snake isn’t the first fugitive to detail his exploits on Twitter. The so-called “Barefoot Bandit” kept followers fascinated by popping up on Facebook every now and again. Colton Harris-Moore was captured in 2010 after crashing a plane in the Bahamas – but his Facebook fan page had about 20,000 members.

We’ve heard of anti-virus software for cyberspace, but now we’re forced to wonder: do they make anti-venom?

{1010 WINS New York City/Matzav.com Newscenter}