Experts Reveal the Most Snake-Infested National Park in the U.S.

Most people think of rattlesnakes when they picture dangerous wildlife in America's national parks. What they probably do not picture is a single park where a visitor could theoretically encounter close to half of every snake species found across the entire United States. But that is exactly what wildlife scientists say awaits at Big Bend National Park in west Texas, a sweeping landscape of desert, mountain, and river canyon that doubles as one of the most ecologically dense reptile habitats on the continent.

Why Experts Point to Big Bend Above All Others

Dr. John C. Maerz, a distinguished professor of forestry and natural resources at the University of Georgia and a specialist in reptile ecology, says that when it comes to raw snake diversity, the American southwest leads the country. Within that region, Big Bend stands in a class of its own. The park's geography layers the Chihuahuan Desert flats, the rugged Chisos Mountains, and the Rio Grande canyon corridor on top of each other, creating multiple distinct ecosystems within a single park boundary. Snakes have had millions of years to fill every available niche within all of them.