5 Won Balaena Mysticetus

North Korea issued a series of wildlife-themed silver pieces in the late 1990s and early 2000s primarily for foreign export, generating hard currency at a time when the country was still reeling from the catastrophic famine of 1994–1998 that killed an estimated 240,000 to 3.5 million people. These coins never circulated domestically. The bowhead whale — Balaena mysticetus — is among the longest-lived mammals on Earth, with confirmed individuals exceeding 200 years of age, a biological fact that makes the species a subject of ongoing scientific interest in Arctic research.