diff --git a/CHANGES.md b/CHANGES.md
index 9af4fdf5..ee4a01f5 100644
--- a/CHANGES.md
+++ b/CHANGES.md
@@ -16,6 +16,7 @@
 
 -   Fix decode error reading an sqlite file on windows (#568).
 -   Fix wrong layername when creating .gpkg.zip file (#570).
+-   Fix segfault on providing an invalid value for `layer` in `read_info` (#564).
 
 ### Packaging
 
diff --git a/pyogrio/_io.pyx b/pyogrio/_io.pyx
index 7845310c..a4aed843 100644
--- a/pyogrio/_io.pyx
+++ b/pyogrio/_io.pyx
@@ -304,6 +304,10 @@ cdef OGRLayerH get_ogr_layer(GDALDatasetH ogr_dataset, layer) except NULL:
 
         elif isinstance(layer, int):
             ogr_layer = check_pointer(GDALDatasetGetLayer(ogr_dataset, layer))
+        else:
+            raise ValueError(
+                f"'layer' parameter must be a str or int, got {type(layer)}"
+            )
 
     # GDAL does not always raise exception messages in this case
     except NullPointerError:
diff --git a/pyogrio/core.py b/pyogrio/core.py
index 4ae00158..164c0029 100644
--- a/pyogrio/core.py
+++ b/pyogrio/core.py
@@ -237,9 +237,9 @@ def read_info(
     ----------
     path_or_buffer : str, pathlib.Path, bytes, or file-like
         A dataset path or URI, raw buffer, or file-like object with a read method.
-    layer : [type], optional
+    layer : str or int, optional
         Name or index of layer in data source.  Reads the first layer by default.
-    encoding : [type], optional (default: None)
+    encoding : str, optional (default: None)
         If present, will be used as the encoding for reading string values from
         the data source, unless encoding can be inferred directly from the data
         source.
diff --git a/pyogrio/tests/test_core.py b/pyogrio/tests/test_core.py
index 11af010e..3ac23e36 100644
--- a/pyogrio/tests/test_core.py
+++ b/pyogrio/tests/test_core.py
@@ -600,6 +600,11 @@ def test_read_info_unspecified_layer_warning(data_dir):
         read_info(data_dir / "sample.osm.pbf")
 
 
+def test_read_info_invalid_layer(naturalearth_lowres):
+    with pytest.raises(ValueError, match="'layer' parameter must be a str or int"):
+        read_bounds(naturalearth_lowres, layer=["list_arg_is_invalid"])
+
+
 def test_read_info_without_geometry(no_geometry_file):
     assert read_info(no_geometry_file)["total_bounds"] is None