OKC Rattlesnake and Venom Museum
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Carl Sandefer, former employee of the Oklahoma City Zoo, was on a vacation to Albuquerque, New Mexico, when he came across its rattlesnake museum. He was intrigued, and also aware that Oklahoma had plenty of its own rattlesnakes -- including diamondback, timber, prairie, and pigmy. Sandefer decided that a rattlesnake museum in his home state would be helpful; it could help people distinguish venomous varieties from those that were harmless. He opened his museum in July 2018 with 35 snakes, including "Big Girl," a diamondback over five feet long. Sandefer then immediately announced that he planned to expand his museum due to its unexpected popularity. It now has over 60 snakes, including whoppers Titantica and Jakarta, a 25-foot-long python, and Zeus, the largest King Cobra on display in the U.S.
Carl has only been bitten once, by a diamondback rattlesnake, but that was when he was working on a book about centipedes, before he opened the museum.