According to numerous reports, a deadly Egyptian cobra escaped from its enclosure in the Bronx Zoo on Sunday, March 27, sending typically edgy New York City residents into panic mode. One venomous bite from the 20-inch-long snake, which weighs less than three ounces, can kill a full-grown elephant in less than three hours. Although zoo staffers say they believe the snake is hiding out somewhere in the Reptile House, Bronx Zoo Director Jim Breheny said the process of catching the reptile may take several weeks. "Right now, it's the snake's game," Breheny said Monday. "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." The folks at the Bronx Zoo might want to check Twitter for possible leads, where a (fake) Twitter handle for the ' Bronx Zoo's Cobra' has been terrorizing Manhattan since Monday. The account already has 50,000 followers (and counting), with hilarious status updates like, "Enjoying a cupcake @magnoliabakery. This is going straight to my hips. Oh, wait. I don't have hips. Yesss! #snakeonthetown."
Alyssa Borek / Bronx Zoo
Whoa Nellie! In a scene straight out of Jumanji, back on Nov. 28, 1908, a circus elephant named 'Nellie' was rehearsing the bass drum at the Hippodrome Theater, but, after getting in a squabble with a clown's pig, stormed out of the theater and onto the New York City streets, taking 43rd Street to Fifth Avenue "People above 43rd Street stopped and rushed back the other way as she swung around the corner and down; vehicles switched off to the curbs or put on full speed ahead; plunging horses dragged carriages upon the sidewalks; pedestrians dived into the nearest shops, " said The New York Times' description of the event. The escaped elephant went about a mile, wandering through several backyards and even stepping through the front door of a five-story brick tenement, before being captured at 34th Street and Third Avenue after falling for a trap involving a loaf of bread. The story was so popular it (possibly) inspired the 1956 ballad " Nellie the Elephant" by Ralph Butler and Peter Hart.
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In a strange event that inspired an episode of Law & Order—and has since become the stuff of urban legend—Antoine Yates called the police to say he had been badly bitten by a pit bull in October 2003. But when he was checked out at Harlem Hospital, the bite marks looked far too big to have come from by a dog. The next day, police got a random tip that an animal was on the loose in the city, and on the following day, another call directed police to a disheveled apartment inside the Drew Hamilton Houses at 141st Street and Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard in Harlem. Hearing loud roars, police sent a sniper to scale the side of the building and fire several tranquilizer darts to subdue a 350-pound Bengal tiger. Yes, a 2-year-old tiger named Ming, along with an approximately five-foot long caiman reptile, were found in Yates' apartment, although it's not certain they had been living there. "This is an only-in-New-York story," said New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.
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One of the best-known species of Old World monkeys, Rhesus monkeys are often used nationally in medical and biological experiments, as well as numerous NASA space expeditions. Back in October 1935, "the chattery Rhesus monkey colony at Frank Buck's jungle camp on the Sunrise Highway between Massapequa and Amityville, Long Island, near New York; gave no warning recently that it was aquiver with impending revolution," wrote a special correspondent of The New York Times. About 150 out of 570 monkeys, weighing between five and 12 pounds and valued at $50 each, scaled the park walls and escaped, causing a panic among the local townsfolk. According to the aforementioned newspaper story, "The alleged leader was unanimously selected as having been an agile creature called Capone, who might have been suspected because of his name, but apparently was not."
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The Egyptian cobra isn't the first reptile to wreak havoc on the Reptile House at the Bronx Zoo. Back in 1908, just one week after arriving from Cuba, a pair of giant, four-foot-long iguanas escaped from their cages in the Reptile House, and, despite not being poisonous and relatively harmless overall, they caused quite a stir. "The iguanas are about the most terrifying looking of all the reptiles in the Bronx Park Zoo… Their wicked looking, beadlike eyes are encased in hard, bony skin, something like alligator hide, and their heads are arrow-shaped… Altogether they are quite ugly enough to strike terror to anyone," wrote The New York Times. After leaving their cages, the animal handler approached the iguanas, who first lashed out at the keeper, before darting out the door of the Reptile House. It took several guards armed with stout clubs—similar to a policeman's nightstick—to chase the iguanas back into the Reptile House, and then the guards proceeded to chase the reptiles for an hour inside, before trapping them in a burlap sack.
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In 1867, James Gordon Bennett took over as publisher of the New York Herald, one of the most popular newspapers at the time. According to rumors, Bennett boasted regularly about his immense influence over New York City dwellers, and allegedly made a bet that he could keep the entire city indoors for a day. So, on November 9, 1874, the Herald's headline screamed, "AWFUL CALAMITY: A Shocking Sabbath Carnival of Death." The article, which ran over 10,000 words and occupied six full columns, claimed that a large number of wild animals had escaped from the Central Park Zoo, wreaking havoc on the streets of Manhattan. According to reports, the carnage left 27 people dead and another 200 injured, and the militia was called in to handle the situation. Naturally, most New Yorkers reportedly stayed indoors on Nov. 9 thanks to the elaborate hoax.
Wallace G. Levison
