The 7 signs that the snake from the Butantan Institute was stolen

This week, a cobra snake from the Butantan Institute disappeared. A CNN found that the snake was a male, a baby, and reproduced in captivity in São Paulo.

The species is common in Africa and India, but was brought to Brazil after a parallel market for the sale of this type of animal was revealed. The sale value can reach R$50 thousand.

As soon as the snake disappeared, the Butantan Institute began rigorous investigation work. Sources heard by CNN They say they prefer to exhaust all possibilities in the internal investigation, before registering a police report indicating the snake's disappearance.

The hypothesis of theft was one of the first suggested by the researchers, who ended up discarding this scenario and starting to believe that the snake could have escaped and fallen into one of the plumbing ducts.

Seven signs, however, point to the theft of the snake. They are related to the context of the disappearance, the characteristics of the snake and the parallel market created in Brazil to sell wild animals of this type.

The first is that the snake was in a box suitable for animals of this species, like many other snakes. Only she supposedly escaped. The snake was the only one that “ran away”. Her “cellmates” didn’t want to follow the same path.

This type of snake has nocturnal habits known to researchers. They hide during the day and come out to hunt at night.

So, when they talked about the escape, researchers said it would be easily found, but that didn't happen. They did the physical search for days, considering the cobra's habits, and found nothing.

This specific snake was a male and a baby, it wouldn't travel very far, so it would be easy to find it in the place where it escaped, which also didn't happen. The researchers even placed traps, like mousetraps, with food for her, and even though she needed to eat, she didn't show up.

Of all the snakes in the lab, cobras were the most valuable. This specific snake that escaped had an estimated value of up to R$50,000. She was considered the most beautiful of the cobras, gray, with an eye-shaped spot on the back of her head.

It is also important to consider that there is a parallel market for this type of snake in Brazil.

Years ago, in 2021, a cobra was seized in Brasília after biting a young man. The fact alerted the authorities and Butantan itself to the parallel market for this type of wild animals in Brazil.

Precisely for this reason, Butantan understood that it would be reasonable to produce a serum against bites from this type of snake.

In a statement, the institute says that “a baby cobra snake was reported missing from the Herpetology Laboratory three weeks ago”. They also state that “it is necessary to clarify that the Laboratory is far from the Science Park and its museums.

There was no escape of the baby snake in the public visitation area. The laboratory is only frequented by professionals and researchers.”

The note also adds that Butantan “has a contingency plan for these cases, which has been activated and is working, including an internal investigation underway. Cameras were checked and there was no sign of her outside the herpetology lab.”

The agency also suggests that “the most likely hypothesis is that she entered the laboratory's internal drain and, from there, died in the pipes. In any case, traps were placed around the area. But nothing was found.”