5 Dollars - Charles III Carcharodontosaurus

Carcharodontosaurus, the North African theropod whose name translates roughly as "shark-toothed lizard," was for decades known only from fragmentary material destroyed in the Munich bombing raids of 1944. The genus was effectively lost to science until Paul Sereno's 1996 expedition recovered a far more complete skull from the Sahara, reigniting serious study of what may have rivaled Tyrannosaurus in size. Cook Islands has made a cottage industry of silver bullion issues tied to paleontological subjects, and this piece sits in that commercially driven but technically precise niche.