Cape Fear Serpentarium

Private reptile facility with some of the world's rarest and most venomous snakes

The Cape Fear Serpentarium is a private reptile facility housing one of the most diverse collections of venomous snakes in the United States. In a downtown Wilmington storefront, Gaboon vipers, black mambas, king cobras, and a remarkable array of other species live in custom-built enclosures that allow close viewing. The collection is unusual enough to draw herpetologists from across the country.

This is emphatically not a sanitised zoo experience. The animals are kept in a naturalistic, somewhat menacing setting that makes the visit feel more like entering a serious collector's private world than a mainstream attraction. Children who are fascinated by reptiles will find it extraordinary; those easily frightened might not. The owner's deep expertise comes through in every enclosure, and for anyone interested in venomous snakes, it is simply one of the best places in the country to see them.

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A story
The Serpentarium's founder, Dean Ripa, is one of the world's foremost experts on the bushmaster, a large venomous pit viper from Central and South America. He has been bitten by venomous snakes multiple times in the course of his work and survived. The Serpentarium holds the largest collection of live bushmasters in captivity. Ripa has also written fiction — he was a friend of William S. Burroughs and has published in literary magazines — making him one of the more unusual figures in American herpetology.