1000 Francs CFA Boomslang

Togo's wildlife-themed silver issues of the mid-2000s were produced under the BCEAO framework but marketed almost exclusively through European numismatic distributors, never seeing domestic circulation. The boomslang — a rear-fanged colubrid whose venom was largely underestimated by herpetologists until the 1957 death of Karl Schmidt, a prominent American zoologist who fatally misjudged a bite — made for an unusual subject choice, given the snake's range is almost entirely southern and eastern Africa, well outside Togolese territory.