25 Francs Hippopotamus

Burundi has no wild hippopotamus population to speak of — the species was hunted to local extinction in the country decades ago. The animal's appearance on this issue is essentially aspirational, part of a broader Central African numismatic tradition of marketing wildlife coins to foreign collectors rather than domestic circulation. Burundi has leaned heavily on this model since the 1990s, producing silver and bimetallic issues almost entirely for the international bullion and novelty market.