King cobra that escaped from zoo in Sweden returns to terrarium

Sir Hiss is no longer a missing snake.

A venomous 7-foot king cobra that escaped from its terrarium at a zoo in Sweden returned home on its own, ending a weeklong quest to find the reptile.

The deadly snake, whose official name is Sir Vass (Sir Hiss), escaped from the Skansen Aquarium in Stockholm on Oct. 22, The Associated Press reported. That caused zoo officials to dub the snake “Houdini,” after the famous escape artist.

A venomous 2.2-meter (7 foot) king cobra that escaped from its home in a Swedish zoo has returned back home on its own, bringing a happy ending to over a week-long disappearance saga. https://t.co/341jmkLzby
— The Associated Press (@AP) October 30, 2022

“Houdini, as we named him, has crawled back into his terrarium,” Skansen Aquarium CEO Jonas Wahlstrom told the Swedish public broadcaster SVT on Sunday.

The snake escaped through a light fixture in the ceiling of its glass enclosure at the aquarium, CBS News reported. The zoo is located on Stockholm’s Djurgarden island, and visitors were evacuated while officials searched for the wayward cobra, according to the news outlet.

Officials used X-ray machines to locate the reptile, which was found in a confined space in insulation between two walls, according to the AP. Holes were drilled into the walls, but the snake had slithered out of sight of the X-ray cameras.

As it turned out, the snake simply crawled back to its terrarium, the news organization reported.

The terrarium has housed king cobras for about 15 years, Wahlstrom told AFP earlier this week.

King cobras can attain a length of up to 18 feet long, CBS News reported. They mainly live in India, Southeast Asia and the Philippines.

According to the news outlet, the Stockholm zoo houses about 200 exotic species of animal, including fish, crocodiles, turtles, lizards, snakes, naked mole-rats, marmosets, golden lion tamarins, baboons, lemurs, spiders and parrots.