200 Dollars - Elizabeth II 4th Portrait - Mallee Fowl - Gold Proof

The 2005 Australian $200 gold proof featuring the Mallee Fowl was part of the Royal Australian Mint's native fauna series, a program that had anchored Australia's high-denomination gold coinage since the 1980s. The Mallee Fowl — a ground-dwelling bird native to the arid scrublands of southern Australia — was already listed as vulnerable under federal legislation by the time this coin was struck, its populations declining sharply due to fox predation and habitat clearing. Ian Rank-Broadley's fourth portrait of Elizabeth II, adopted by the RAM in 1999, appears here in its mature application across the denomination.