10 Yuan Pterodactylus

Part of the Chinese Prehistoric Animals series, which ran through the 1990s and drew genuine international collector interest for its paleontological subject matter at a time when Chinese mints were aggressively expanding their numismatic export programs. The series was among the first from the People's Bank of China to target natural history themes rather than the cultural and lunar subjects that dominated their earlier commemorative output.

Pterodactylus fossils have been recovered in significant numbers from Liaoning Province — deposits that, by the mid-1990s, were already producing internationally significant specimens and drawing considerable scientific attention.