5 Pesos Cuban Crocodile

Cuba's wildlife coin program of the 1980s was partly a hard-currency exercise — Havana needed foreign exchange badly, and collector silver was one of the few mechanisms available outside Soviet trade agreements. The Cuban crocodile (Crocodylus rhombifer), endemic to the Zapata Swamp and Isla de Juventud, was already under active state protection by this point, having been driven to near-extinction by hunting and habitat loss before a captive breeding program was established at La Boca in 1959.