Big Bend National Park Trivia
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42 free Big Bend National Park trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This Big Bend National Park trivia quiz covers the vast, remote park in West Texas where the Rio Grande makes its great turn along the Mexican border. Questions range across the geography (the Chisos Mountains, Emory Peak, the canyons of Santa Elena, Mariscal and Boquillas, the Chihuahuan Desert), the wildlife (Mexican black bears, cougars, the Colima warbler that breeds nowhere else in the US) and the fossils, including the giant pterosaur Quetzalcoatlus dug out of the Javelina Formation. The human history is just as rich: the Chisos and Comanche, Spanish presidios, buffalo soldiers, the quicksilver mines of Terlingua and Mariscal, the hot-springs resort on the river, the 1916 raid that brought in the cavalry, how Texas handed the land to the nation in 1944, the border rules that make a float trip an international departure, and the village of Boquillas across the water. There is also the darkest night sky in the contiguous United States and a chili cook-off founded by Carroll Shelby. Questions run from easy to expert with the difficulty shown on each one. Every answer was checked against a reference page and each question carries its citation. If you enjoy this one, try our Yellowstone and US National Parks quizzes next.
30 of 42 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Big Bend National Park takes its name from a great curve in which river?
The Rio Grande
The Rio Grande, which forms well over 1,000 miles of the US–Mexico border, makes a sweeping turn along the park's southern edge, cutting three deep limestone canyons.
Q 02Big Bend is the largest US protected area of which of North America's deserts?
Chihuahuan
Chihuahuan Desert country lies mostly in Mexico, which is why Big Bend, at the desert's northern end, is the largest protected piece on the US side.
Q 03The Chisos Mountains hold what distinction among US ranges?
The only range entirely inside one national park
The only range entirely inside one national park, the Chisos stand so high above the desert that they run 10 to 20 °F cooler, cool enough for forests of oak, juniper and pine.
Q 04Big Bend National Park lies entirely within which Texas county, the state's largest?
Brewster
Brewster County became the largest in Texas in 1897, when two neighbouring counties that had never been organised, Buchel and Foley, were folded into it.
Q 05What is the highest point in Big Bend National Park?
Emory Peak
Emory Peak tops out at about 7,800 feet; it was named in 1852 by a surveyor mapping the Big Bend for William H. Emory, who led the US–Mexico boundary survey.
Q 06By what name is the river that bounds Big Bend National Park known in Mexico?
Río Bravo
Río Bravo was the Spanish colonial name for the lower river, while the upper river went by Río del Norte; Mexico now uses Bravo for the whole river, in full Río Bravo del Norte.
Q 07More than 450 species of which animals have been recorded in Big Bend National Park?
Birds
Birds top the park's lists because so many are just passing through: of about 450 species reported, only 56 live in Big Bend all year, the rest being migrants and seasonal visitors.
Q 08Visitors to Big Bend National Park report more than 150 sightings a year of which big cat?
Mountain lion
Mountain lion sightings top 150 a year, most of them along park roads; the cats normally avoid people, and rangers tell hikers who meet one never to run, because running triggers the instinct to chase.
Q 09Which animal recolonised the Chisos Mountains on its own in the late 1980s?
Mexican black bear
Mexican black bears, nearly wiped out locally by the mid-1900s, wandered back into the Chisos from Mexico's Sierra del Carmen in the late 1980s and re-established a breeding population.
Q 10About 60 species of which desert plants grow in Big Bend, among them claretcup and pitaya?
Cacti
Cacti come in about 60 kinds here because the park climbs some 6,000 feet from hot river floodplain to cool mountain woodland, giving different species their own niches.
Q 11Big Bend camps once boiled which desert plant for a product used in polishes and chewing gum?
Candelilla
Candelilla coats its leafless stems in wax to hold in water; boiled out in vats, that wax was in heavy demand in both world wars and still goes into cosmetics.
Q 12Which giant pterosaur was found in Big Bend's Javelina Formation in 1971?
Quetzalcoatlus
Quetzalcoatlus, named for the Aztec feathered-serpent god, came to light when geology student Douglas Lawson, doing fieldwork for his master's thesis, spotted a wing bone eroding out of the ground.
Q 13Fossil hunters in Big Bend have dug up the huge neck vertebrae of which long-necked dinosaur?
Alamosaurus
Q 21Which metal was extracted from the cinnabar ore mined at Terlingua and Mariscal?
Mercury
Mercury, or quicksilver, was baked out of the red cinnabar ore in furnaces; long before the miners came, Native Americans are said to have used the same ore as paint in rock art.
Q 22What is the V-shaped notch in the Chisos Basin's western rim called?
The Window
The Window is the gap where Oak Creek spills off the basin's rim over a slickrock pour-off, so the notch frames a wide view of the desert far below.
Q 23The javelina that roams Big Bend's campgrounds is properly known by which other name?
Peccary
Peccary is right: the collared peccary is often mistaken for a wild pig, but it belongs to a separate family of hoofed mammals and is no pig at all.
Alamosaurus owes its name to Ojo Alamo, the place in New Mexico where the first bones were found, and has nothing to do with the Alamo in San Antonio.
Q 14Which people crossed Big Bend on a trail named after them to raid deep into Mexico until the mid-1800s?
Comanche
The Comanche rode south each autumn under the full 'Comanche moon', driving stolen horses and captives home along a trail beaten up to a mile wide across the Big Bend.
Q 15Which shipwrecked Spanish explorer may have passed near the Big Bend around 1535?
Cabeza de Vaca
Cabeza de Vaca sailed with the Narváez expedition to conquer Florida; one of only four survivors, he spent eight years crossing the Southwest as a trader and faith healer among Native peoples.
Q 16Lieutenant Henry Flipper, who served near the Big Bend, was the first African American to do what?
Graduate from West Point
Flipper was the first African American to graduate from West Point, in 1877; dismissed from the Army in 1882 after a disputed court-martial, he was pardoned by President Clinton in 1999.
Q 17A May 1916 raid on which Big Bend settlement led President Wilson to mobilise the National Guard?
Glenn Springs
Glenn Springs was held by just nine cavalrymen, who fought from an adobe building for hours until the raiders set its roof alight; three soldiers and a storekeeper's young son were killed.
Q 18Which name, inspired by its river gorges, did lawmakers give Big Bend as a state park in 1933?
Texas Canyons State Park
Texas Canyons State Park began in 1933 as just fifteen sections of state land around the canyons; within months it was enlarged and renamed Big Bend State Park.
Q 19Big Bend became a national park six days after which World War II event?
D-Day
D-Day came on June 6, 1944, the same day the deed to the park's land was formally presented to President Roosevelt; Big Bend became a national park on June 12.
Q 20Which season is the busiest for visitors at Big Bend National Park?
Spring
Spring is busiest because March and April bring mild days and the desert bloom, while summer afternoons in the low desert regularly top 100 °F.
Q 24Which car maker with a huge ranch nearby co-founded Terlingua's 1967 chili cook-off?
Carroll Shelby
Carroll Shelby, the Texan racing driver turned car builder, co-founded the 1967 cook-off; two separate championships now draw thousands of 'chiliheads' there each November.
Q 25Big Bend visitors can cross the river to which Mexican village, whose border crossing reopened in 2013?
Boquillas del Carmen
Boquillas del Carmen lost nearly half its people after the crossing was closed following the September 11 attacks; it reopened in April 2013 as a Class B port of entry with limited weekly hours.
Q 26What did a mining company build to move ore across the river from Mexico into the Big Bend?
A cable car
A cable car, or aerial tramway, swung silver and lead ore over the river from mines on the Mexican side, and a twin settlement grew up on the Texas bank to serve the trade.
Q 27What did J.O. Langford set up beside the river from 1909, creating the Big Bend's first tourist attraction?
A hot-springs bathhouse
A hot-springs bathhouse: Langford, weakened by malaria since his Mississippi boyhood, took a 21-day cure in the 105 °F water, then charged other bathers for the same treatment.
Q 28What destroyed much of the Castolon Historic District in May 2019?
A wildfire that jumped over from Mexico
A wildfire that jumped over from Mexico crossed the river on May 22, 2019 in 110 °F heat; a wind shift showered embers on the old Army barracks that housed the store and visitor center.
Q 29Which tier did the International Dark-Sky Association award Big Bend's night sky in 2012?
Gold
Gold, the top tier, marks skies 'free from all but the most minor impacts of light pollution'; the park protects that darkness by fitting its own outdoor lamps with shielded LED fixtures.
Q 30The 30-mile Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive ends at which canyon?
Santa Elena
Santa Elena Canyon, where the drive ends, was sawn by the river through limestone laid down in a shallow sea that once covered the Big Bend, leaving nearly vertical walls.