500 Pesos WWF - Crocodile

Colombia's WWF commemorative series of the late 1970s was issued in direct response to the near-extinction of the American crocodile (Crocodylus acutus) along the Colombian coastline, where hunting for hides had collapsed wild populations to the point that conservation biologists were treating the species as functionally eliminated from several river systems. The Banco de la República partnered with the World Wildlife Fund as part of a broader Latin American push to fund wildlife protection through numismatic sales directed at foreign collectors rather than domestic circulation.

The series sold poorly in Colombia itself. Most surviving examples reached the market through European and North American coin dealers.