1000 Francs CFA Spinosaurus

Mali has issued numerous collector-targeted wildlife coins through licensing arrangements with the Bavarian State Mint and similar European producers, none of which reflect any domestic monetary policy or Malian cultural priority. This Spinosaurus piece is part of that cottage industry. Spinosaurus itself earned renewed scientific attention in 2014 when a Nature paper by Nizar Ibrahim's team reinterpreted it as a semi-aquatic predator — the first dinosaur understood to have inhabited a riverine environment — making 2015 a commercially opportune moment for such an issue.