Rock IguanaTurks & Caicos Islands WWF 25th Anniversary Rock IguanaOne of two reptiles in the set, the Cyclura Carinata, or the Rock Iguana, can grow to 60 cm, and weigh up to a Kilo. They hang out of the Limestone rocks of Turks and Caicos island and are most active during the daytime.These rather small iguanas have been hunted by dogs and cats into the critically endangered status, and a large conservation effort is underway in the Islands. They live about 20 years and have a diet of primary vegitative matter, but also dines on small insects. lizzards and crustaceans when in the mood.

One of the side affects of a Dam Project along the Coa River in Portugal was the survey and discovery of an extensive network of pre-historic rock art which dates from 22,000 years ago to the present in several historical layers. The earliest paintings are from 22,000-20,000 years. The second set of drawings date from 16-10,000 years and is more plentiful. Further art works are seen throughout human existence from the Epipaleolithic period, the Neolithic, the Chalcolithic and Bronze Ages, into the 5th and 1st centuries and finally the 17th to 20th century which includes trains.plane and bridges alone with religious and anthropomorphic and zoomorphic designs that included weapons and symbols, an extrodanory cocktail of human prehistory to history.

Some coins present endangered species, and in fact that is one of the most popular commemerative themes, but not this coin.  In this case, the bird is dead and exinct.  In fact, it is fossilized road kill, maybe the most important roadkill we ever discovered.  In 2011, the German Republic issued a lovely proof coin celebrating the discovery of the Archaeopteryx  from the limestone quarries of Solnhofen area in Bavaria.  If you want to see something, I made a really beautiful website about this coin more than a few years ago, and there is no reason to repeat it.  Instead I can update is a bit with new images and its new slab.http://www.mrbrklyn.com/archeopteryx.htmlSince the time I created that page, I had a chance to get a MS in Comp Sci in a late life career change.  For the thesis I wrote a paper on computational mathmatics as it relates to Paleontology.  I took off and spent some quality time in the Canadian Bad Land of Drumheller Alberta and the Royal Tyrell Museum.  They have a terrific museum which I wrote extensively about http://images.mrbrklyn.com/2017_03_royal_tyrell_drumheller/IMG_1491.JPG?slideshow=3&width=1024http://www.mrbrklyn.com/calgary.htmlThe result of all this work was my thesis - which blew the mind of my preceptors and deans.  Nobody ever went to Long Island University before for a Masters in Computer Sciences and minored in Paleontology.    The thesis was cool