{"id":344636,"date":"2026-09-12T02:45:02","date_gmt":"2026-09-12T02:45:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/344636\/"},"modified":"2026-09-12T02:45:02","modified_gmt":"2026-09-12T02:45:02","slug":"15-years-ago-a-cobra-at-the-bronx-zoo-went-missing-and-sparked-a-social-media-frenzy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/344636\/","title":{"rendered":"15 Years Ago, a Cobra at the Bronx Zoo Went Missing and Sparked a Social Media Frenzy"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEED TO KNOW<\/p>\n

An Egyptian cobra at the Bronx Zoo went missing in 2011, sparking a weeklong search and one popular Twitter account<\/p>\n

@BronxZooCobra made jokes about the snake online as scores of followers flocked to the page<\/p>\n

The snake, rescued a few hundred feet from the enclosure, was given a new name: Mia.<\/p>\n

Fifteen years ago, an Egyptian cobra went missing from her enclosure in the Bronx Zoo. When she was located nearly a week later, the snake had gained immense fame, adoration and the dedicated attention of New York City.<\/p>\n

When the two-foot, 3-ounce cobra slipped from her enclosure at the Bronx Zoo\u2019s Reptile House, the news took off quickly \u2014 particularly on social media, The New York Times<\/a> andABC News<\/a>reported at the time. While New York was on the lookout for the slithering escapee, a Twitter user posing as the snake built a sizable following.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to thank those animals from the movie \u2018Madagascar,\u2019\u201d @BronxZoosCobra<\/a>\u2018s first tweet read. \u201cThey were a real inspiration.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a><\/p>\n

An Egyptian cobra.Credit: Getty<\/p>\n

The same day, the account offered: \u201cDear NYC, Apples and snakes have gone together since the beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n

After nearly a weeklong snake hunt, the elusive Egyptian cobra was finally located on Thursday, March 31, 2011. The snake was ultimately found a few hundred feet from her enclosure at the Reptile House.<\/p>\n

Jim Breheny, Bronx Zoo director, said the snake was found \u201ccoiled, sort of secluded in a dark corner\u201d around 9 a.m., per ABC. To extract the snake and return her to her designated enclosure, one of the Reptile House employees grabbed \u201cspecial tongs to grip the animal\u201d and deliver her back to her home.<\/p>\n

After New York\u2019s vibrant response and interest in the snake, the Bronx Zoo decided to hold a contest to decide the reptile\u2019s name, per the BBC<\/a>. Ultimately, the public chose \u201cMia,\u201d which earned 27% of the roughly 59,000 votes. Coming in second, third, fourth and fifth were Subira, Amaunet, Cleopatra and Agnes, respectively.<\/p>\n

Never miss a story \u2014 sign up for PEOPLE\u2019s free daily newsletter<\/a> to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.<\/p>\n

At the time, BBC reported, the famous Twitter account gave a silly reply to the official renaming of the snake.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, the vote is in. They want to name me Mia,\u201d the post read. \u201cBut in my heart I\u2019ll always know that my true name is Mrs Justin Bieber.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read the original article on People<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEED TO KNOW An Egyptian cobra at the Bronx Zoo went missing in 2011, sparking a weeklong search…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":344637,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,9,24,63,129,131,130],"class_list":["post-344636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-bronx","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=344636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344636\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}