200 Pesos Chalicotherium

Part of Cuba's long-running fauna series struck in the early 1990s, a period when the collapse of Soviet subsidies had left the Cuban economy in freefall — the so-called "Special Period in Time of Peace." These coins were never intended for domestic circulation. They were minted purely for hard currency export, sold to foreign collectors and dealers to generate the dollars and deutschmarks the state desperately needed after 1991.

The Chalicotherium itself died out roughly 3.5 million years ago, a perissodactyl distantly related to horses and rhinos — an unusual paleontological subject for a Caribbean mint.