1 Lira Desert Monitor

Turkey's wildlife series, launched in the 2010s, was the mint's response to the growing European collector market for circulating bimetallic commemoratives. The desert monitor (Varanus griseus) is native to the arid regions of southeastern Anatolia — one of the few places in the world where a varanid lizard reaches its natural northwestern range limit. That biogeographic fact, rather than any numismatic rarity, is what makes this issue worth noting.