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5 Dollars - Elizabeth II Last Tasmanian Tiger
| Issuer | Niue |
|---|---|
| Year | 2011 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 5 Dollars |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | The upper portion of the reverse features a finely engraved profile bust of a thylacine (Tasmanian Tiger) facing right with open jaws, rendered in high relief against a dark field, accompanied by the two-line inscription TASMANIAN TIGER in the upper right. The lower half of the reverse incorporates a rectangular lenticular inset panel with a moving-picture (motion) effect depicting the last captive Tasmanian Tiger, Benjamin, as recorded in archival film footage by David Fleay in 1933, creating an animated impression when the coin is tilted. The lenticular panel is recessed within the silver field and framed by a polished border. |
| Reverse script | Latin |
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| Additional information |
The thylacine — commonly called the Tasmanian tiger — was declared extinct in 1986, fifty years after the last known specimen, a male named Benjamin, died at Hobart's Beaumaris Zoo on 7 September 1936. The zoo had failed to provide him shelter on a night of unusual cold. Niue has issued numerous wildlife-themed commemoratives under licensing arrangements that have little connection to the subjects themselves, but the thylacine's extinction story is unusually well-documented and genuinely grim.
The Tasmanian government had paid bounties on thylacines until 1909, by which point the population was already functionally collapsed.