Escaped albino cobra gets new home at Los Angeles zoo

The snake, an all-white specimen of a species called a monocled cobra that is illegal to possess in California without a special permit, was captured on Thursday near where it was last seen when it scuffled with the dog in the community of Thousand Oaks.

"The cobra is at the Los Angeles Zoo right now, in quarantine, so it is just being watched over and no-one (from the public) is allowed to see it," zoo spokesman Ashley Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez said it was standard zoo procedure for newly arrived animals to be quarantined.

The dog was treated at a veterinarian hospital for what was originally reported to be a snake bite to its neck, and it has since recovered.

Betsey Webster, a spokeswoman for the animal control agency, said on Thursday that the dog's injury turned out to be "not consistent with a bite" and may have only been an abrasion since no venom entered the wound.

Webster said investigators were actively following leads to determine who might have owned the snake, which is native to parts of South Asia and Southeast Asia.

Authorities launched an urgent search for the wandering cobra after the dog's owner took photographs of it following the attack, touching off a local media frenzy.

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Additional reporting by Steve Gorman; Editing by Sandra Maler)