ESSSCAPE ARTIST

King Cobra Slithers Back Into His Swedish Zoo Tank a Week After Vanishing

Appropriately, the venomous 7-foot reptile has been informally rechristened “Houdini.”

With his hissy fit at an end, a deadly 7-foot snake is back in his enclosure in a Swedish zoo, having taken it upon himself to return home after a week on the lam. “Houdini, as we named him, has crawled back into his terrarium,” Jonas Wahlstrom, the Skansen Aquarium’s CEO, told Swedish radio on Sunday, according to the Associated Press. Houdini, whose real name translates to “Sir Hiss,” escaped by sneaking through a light fixture in the ceiling on Oct. 22. A frantic search effort was mounted, with X-ray technology eventually revealing the creature’s hiding spot not far from his terrarium, in an insulation layer between two walls. The zoo team drilled a number of holes into the wall, stressing the animal out, according to Wahlstrom. “So he wanted to go home again,” the executive added, explaining that was when the massive venomous animal surrendered, squirming back into his tank. Staff said the snake likely would not have been able to survive the cold temperatures outside his building, which is part of the Skansen open-air museum and park on Stockholm’s Kungliga Djurgården island.