2 Dollars - Charles III The Tassie Tiger Lives

Niue has long served as a licensing vehicle for novelty bullion issues, and this piece fits squarely in that category — a sovereign issuer lending its legal tender status to a coin with no economic connection to the island. The Tasmanian tiger, Thylacinus cynocephalus, was declared extinct in 1936 following the death of the last known captive specimen at Hobart Zoo, though sporadic unverified sightings have kept a minor cottage industry of cryptozoological interest alive ever since.

Persistent DNA recovery efforts from museum specimens, including work published by the University of Melbourne's Thylacine Integrated Genetic Restoration Research lab as recently as 2023, have lent the "de-extinction" premise a thin but genuine scientific basis.