The white monocled cobra brought to the San Diego Zoo after it got loose in Thousand Oaks last year has a name Friday: Adhira.
The word means “lightning” in Hindi, according to the zoo.
Adhira received 11.5 percent of more than 4,600 or so votes cast in an online poll, zoo officials said.
The snake, estimated to be around 2 years old and measuring just over 4 feet long, arrived at the zoo Sept. 5 and underwent a 90-day mandatory quarantine. It went on display in the zoo’s Reptile House last week.
Believed to possibly be a pet that got loose or was released, the reptile eluded animal control authorities for four days before being caught and sent to the Los Angeles Zoo. The San Diego Zoo eventually took in the cobra because it has the right kind of anti-venom for the poisonous snake.
Adhira is leucistic, meaning she is mostly white rather than the usual brown and beige colors of the species. Leucism is characterized by reduced pigmentation, unlike albinism, which features no pigmentation.
— City News Service
