They still are not releasing much info about where she was found, but ironically this socially networked Egyptian elapid seems to have generated a shocking amount of good will not often reserved for deadly missing snakes! I was expecting the 21st version of a 1970s horror film and instead people really took this in stride.



That being said, this still strikes me as a pretty big breakdown of procedure. My first thought was what they seem to be hinting happened, that the snake somehow nosed its way into part of the machinery running its enclosure and was able to get out of the enclosure proper but was probably stuck somewhere. Zoo professionals frequently comment that the part of many enclosures visible to the patron is often a tiny fraction of the behind-the-scenes square footage devoted to filtration, climate control, air filter, etc. My local zoo makes a point of talking about how big the machinery is to keep water turtles in clean water--many times the size of their enclosure--so that parents will realize how tough these animals are to keep as pets.



I also wondered about cobra-on-cobra cannibalism. A few years back the London Zoo kept a trio of N. haje together, a big one, a medium-sized one, and a notably smaller one, and I wondered how safe the little guy would be if the big cobras got peckish!

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