Visitor can travel from the Rio Grande with its spectacular canyons and jungle like flood plain up through Chihuahuan Desert which constitutes the majority of the park, to Chisos Mountains with cool woodlands. This variation in elevation and temperature makes the Big Bend an ideal year round park. Big Bend is a challenging place to visit in the summer. May and June temporaries in the Chisos Mountains can reach 95 degrees. With a diversity of Mexican and American plants, more than 1,100 plant types are found in the park.
Animal life is just as varied.
Desert wildlife is mostly nocturnal, but deer, coyotes, javelinas, gray fox, skunks, raccoons and jackrabbits might be seen during the day. Lucky visitors might spot some of the rarer animals, such as ringtail, black bear, beaver and mountain lion. More than 430 bird species have been identified, more than at any other national park. Birds include the cute and cuddly road runner, area the raucous gray-breasted jay, beautiful hummingbirds, and the rare Colima warbler whose only U.S. nesting grounds are in the Chisos Mountains. One hundred million years ago, this area was under a ocean.