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5 Euros Ventastega
| Issuer | Bank of Latvia |
|---|---|
| Year | 2020 |
| Type | Non-circulating coin |
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| Obverse description | At centre, a detailed artistic rendering of Ventastega curonica, an extinct Devonian tetrapod, is depicted emerging from shallow primordial waters onto land, its skeletal structure highlighted in photoluminescent print to evoke its paleontological significance. The upper field bears the semicircular legend VENTASTEGA following the coin's edge. Along the lower periphery, the denomination 5 EURO curves to the left and the issuer inscription LATVIJA together with the date 2020 appears to the right, all in Latin script. The design combines naturalistic relief work with varying degrees of frosting to create contrast between the creature and the surrounding field. |
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| Reverse script | Latin |
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| Additional information |
*Ventastega curonica* was described from fossils found in Latvia's Venta River basin — specimens that turned out to represent one of the most significant transitional tetrapods ever discovered. The animal, which lived roughly 365 million years ago, occupied an evolutionary position between lobe-finned fish and fully limbed land vertebrates, and its 2008 formal description in *Nature* drew considerable scientific attention to Latvian paleontology. This coin was issued to mark that scientific heritage directly.
The photoluminescent print is functional, not decorative: under UV light it reveals details invisible in normal viewing conditions — a relatively rare technical application in European collector coinage of this period.