1000 Francs CFA Connochaetes Taurinus

The wildebeest depicted on this issue belongs to a curious category of African wildlife coinage that proliferated in the early 2000s, when several West African CFA franc states — Ivory Coast among them — licensed their minting authority to produce collectible series aimed almost entirely at the European and North American numismatic market. Ivory Coast itself had no domestic wildebeest population; the animal is native to East and Southern Africa. These coins never circulated.