The Moscow Mint's fantasy series featuring prehistoric fauna has no legal tender status and is sold directly as a collectible, which frees the engravers from the design constraints imposed on official coinage. Estemmenosuchus — a Permian-era therapsid from the Perm region of Russia, making it a deliberate regional nod — was among the earliest large terrestrial herbivores, predating the dinosaurs by roughly 40 million years. Its fossils were first described by Soviet paleontologist Pyotr Chudinov in the 1960s from the Ocher locality in what is now Perm Krai.
The Moscow Mint's fantasy series featuring prehistoric fauna has no legal tender status and is sold directly as a collectible, which frees the engravers from the design constraints imposed on official coinage. Estemmenosuchus — a Permian-era therapsid from the Perm region of Russia, making it a deliberate regional nod — was among the earliest large terrestrial herbivores, predating the dinosaurs by roughly 40 million years. Its fossils were first described by Soviet paleontologist Pyotr Chudinov in the 1960s from the Ocher locality in what is now Perm Krai.