Twitter Patter | @BronxZoosCobra

Tweeting Since Monday
Followers 75,650
Twitter Bio Im an Egyptian cobra out on the town.

While keepers at the Bronx Zoos reptile house searched on Monday afternoon for an Egyptian cobra that disappeared over the weekend, tens of thousands of people around the world had already found the snake. It was on Twitter, of course.

Around 2 p.m., the snake sent its first message: I want to thank those animals from the movie Madagascar, it wrote, referring to the Central Park Zoo escapees depicted in the 2005 animated film. They were a real inspiration.

Within a few hours, @BronxZoosCobra had collected several thousand followers and was sending dispatches from Famous Original Rays Pizza and the tall grass of the High Line. All over the Twittersphere, people who might shy away from an encounter with a cold-blooded, venomous creature under normal circumstances, including the actor Steve Martin, cheered on the snake. Who knew a transient Cobra could be so witty , wrote Shannon Weiner, a follower from Boston.

In an exclusive (for now) e-mail interview, the cobra said its main goal on Twitter was a lot like anyone elses: I just want Justin Bieber to follow me, it said.  The snake also expressed a desire to experiment with a vegan lifestyle while on the loose.  This adventure is all about trying new things, it explained. And Zagat doesnt have a single restaurant featuring rodent cuisine.

While the cobras Twitter account answered, moment to moment, everyones questions about where it was hiding, it raised new ones about how a snake can manage to type. Thanks to touch screen technology, it just takes a flick of the tail, it said. And, on its iPhone, Theres an asp for that.

By Tuesday morning, not only were the zoos reptile keepers still seeking the cobra, but a Twitter mongoose and faux zookeeper were following its online persona. Though it remained one slither ahead of them all, the snake acknowledged that it would inevitably return to the reptile house at the Bronx Zoo, where it may or may not continue to tweet. There is no strict social media policy for zoo animals, but well see, it said. If you grease the right palms (that is in no way to imply that snakes are slimy).

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Twitter Patter is a spotlight on Twitter accounts in New York.