The World Wildlife Fund Collection

Nice - the Photography is improving

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Here is a better focused image:

 

¿Dónde está el pingüino?

 

Here is an image of the penguins (Falkland Islands 50p) from a Delcampe auction, you lazy bum.

http://images-00.delcampe-static.net/img_large/auction/000/152/610/113_001.jpg

Christian

 

Cyprus Mouflon

Cyprus Mouflon, Ovis orientalis ophion is a native wild sheep in residing in the Island of Cyprus. It is very closely related to other Ovis orientalis species that are spread from Western and North Pakistan to Iran. It is thought that the Cyprus variety might actually be a feral version of an ancient domesticated variety which was imported into the Island. And the relationship between wild and domesticated sheep is still somewhat unclear.

The Cyprus Mouflon is listed as Venerable, and by 1937 only about 15 survived in Cyprus. They created the Paphos Forest Game Reserve and the population is now at about 1000 individuals.





http://www.cypenv.info/cypnat/files/mammals.aspx
http://www.waza.org/en/zoo/visit-th...and-musk-ox-1254385523/ovis-orientalis-ophion
http://www.iucnredlist.org/apps/redlist/details/15739/0




This 1 Pound .925 Silver coin weighs 28.28 grams and has a diameter of 38361 MM. it is one of 25,000 proofs and from the Paris Mint. It is dated 1986 and with a Cyprus Emblem on the reverse.

 

Giant Panda - Ailuropoda melanoleuca

Perhaps the crown jewel of the WWF set for many collectors, the Chinese in 1986 contributed a Giant Panda Coin (surprise!). The reverse Panda side design is rather artistic, with rising mountains, Bamboo and Ginkgo tastefully arraigned on the coin around a panda sitting on a log in obvious movement. The obverse is not the Temple of Heaven that Panda collectors are used to. Instead it is a circular wreath, with stars inside above what looks like the Imperial Compound in Peking.




For years it has been taught that Panda are not true bears. Boy was that WRONG! Pandas are bears and evolved off the same tree as the Sloth bear, the Short Faced Bear (extinct), the Grizzly and Polar Bear, etc. It has adapted to a completely vegetation diet of bamboo and has developed a large pad in the claw(hand) to give opposing force when holding Bamboo shoots, something other bears would not be able to do.

Cladestically all bears are defined as follow (from wikipedia)

This is a great video on Bear Evolution including Panda's.

[video=youtube;uZcRMZ3IATc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZcRMZ3IATc[/video]



This is 5 Yuan coin of only .900 silver fineness. It weighs a light 22.22 grams and has a diameter of 36 mm. it is a proof coin of 25,000 specimens produced by the Chinese Mint.

 

Very nice presentation of your newly acquired set of coins Mandy. I'm thoroughly enjoying the 'view' as well as the 'read'......

 

Hello

It takes more work than I thought it would. I don't see how you guys do it every day -Green

 

We'll get there. I think I have now 8/25, which is about 1/3rd. One thing that happened though, is that i shot all 25 coins and I had to skip some animals because the photos weren't as clear as I wanted, and I need to re-shoot them. The Next two though should be the Snow Leapard and the Humpback Whale, two of the best coins!

 

humpback whale Megaptera novaeangliae - Kingdom of Tonga

The Kingdom of Tonga is one of the more exotic nations in the World Wildlife Fund 25th Anniversary series. I nation of the deep South Pacific Ocean, far off the east of Australia and the islands geographically associated with it.



The small nation has an ancient pre-european history, prior to the discovery by Thomas Cooks explorations though out the area. As the only nation in the area to avoid colonization, much of its ancient culture is still intact. In 2010 it became a full constitutional monarchy. Noble Sialeʻataongo Tuʻivakanō became its first rime minister. Tonga, like Japan, adapted to Western Contact and in 1831 organized as a kingdom with a Monarchy that freed its "serfs" and had land reform. Eventually the British put Tinga under its protection, although it was never colonized, nor gave up its monarchy. In 1970, the Protectorate ended, and became part of the Common Wealth. As a side note, the majority of Tonga's financial resources are dominated by the nobility and kingship, and Tonga was named the sixth most corrupt country in the world by Forbes magazine in 2008, just to tell you. Men like to take pictures of Tonga women for some reason








The Humpback Whale is, like most Balaenopteridae or baleen whales (know as a group as the Rorquals ), is an endangered species, nearly hunted out of existence. They can travel 16,000 miles a year. They can weigh 80,000 pounds, and grow nearly 50 feet. They have a complex social life and sing around the globe. Today there is 80,000 individuals around the planet. Humpback songs are poorly understand. They do not repeat and whales of different areas sing the same songs that change over time. Evolutionary genetics is also not completely understood and DNA sequencing analysis has indicated the humpback is more closely related to certain rorquals, particularly the fin whale, although historically was considered a member of its own Genus.

Humpbacks feed only in summer and live off the their fat in winter, which is interesting for an animal this large.





http://ffffound.com/image/ccfe9e9c2ed7097d858522b43a5551f2bb7709a5

http://www.oahudiving.com/humpback_whales_in_hawaii.htm




And a little bit of coin art



The coin is a denomination of 2 pa'anga, .925 silver fineness. It weighs 28.28 grams at a diameter and a mintage of 25,000 proof coins. The 1986 image has the portrait of the Tonga Monarch on the Obverse.

(9 of 25 )

 

Love the "Coin art" I think you should take it outta the water now :yes:

 

Sierra Leone - Pygmy Hippopotamus

Choeropsis liberiensis - Pygmy Hippopatamus
Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone is a small West African Nation with a long complex history involving Colonial and local slave trade, the reverse migration of freed Slaves, rebellion against British rule until to today's unitary presidential constitutional republic. It has suffered several military coups, a one party state and juntas. The country has been pressured by Liberia and Charles Taylor had intervened directly in the state from Liberia by supporting the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) under the command of former Sierra Leonean army corporal Foday Saybana Sankoh. As lateas 2001 political violent had rocked the nation. During 1986-1987 when this coin was produced, Sierra Leone was being lead by the questionably elected government of Major General Joseph Saidu Momoh, whose government was fraught with corruption. Environmentally, the nation has been ravaged by deforestation secondary to heavy lumbering and slash and burn farming. Soil erosion is a major problem which is destabilizing the nations economy and putting the natives at risk. The capital, Freetown, sits on the third largest harbor in the world.

The environmental troubles in Sierra Leone and all of West Africa, for that matter, have adversely affected Pygmy Hippos everywhere they existed. The Nigerian subspecies has been extict at least from the 1940's and a Madagascar species went extinct about 500 years ago. They are mostly nocturnal herbivorous It is semi-aquatic, like its larger cousins.

Much has been learned of Hippo evolution within the last 2 decades. It was for many years thought to be related to Pigs, but modern generics and Clad analysis has shown them to be surprisingly most related to Whales! A mutual ancestor among the artiodactyls around 60 milliom years ago and separated a mere 7 million years ago (see hominid evolution for reference). This is a blink of the eye in geological history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whippomorpha


[video=youtube;LCaiIiW09ko]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCaiIiW09ko[/video]

[video]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/02/Pygmyhippopotamus-uenozoo2008.ogg[/video]







The Coin is a 10 Leones, .925 Fineness Silver Proof with a weight of 28.28 grams and a diameter. The British Mint made 25,000 of these coins.

 

BTW 10 if 25, 15 more to go

 

Hungary - Montagu's Harrier

[video=youtube;MJGaBnBxP6A]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJGaBnBxP6A[/video]

Montagu's Harrier is a favorite bird which had benefited from early agricultural practices until the use of powerful insecticides and newer, faster growing crops. By all reports, it is a very graceful flyer that lives from the Ural Mountains to Atlantic Ocean in most of temperate Europeand even parts of north Africa. In of itself, it is classified as having a "least concern" conservation status, but its health as a species has been subject of concern for several European countries who have made some adjustments in farming practices and behaviors for the benefit of the raptor.

Hungary claimed to have only 10 breeding pairs of the Harrier and put this graceful bird on a coin for the 25th anniversary of the World Wildlife Fund. The result one of the most exciting coin designs I'd ever seen for this 500 Forint 90% silver coin. It weighs 28 grams, and has a diameter of 40MM, making it one of the larger coins of the series. It was minted in the Hungarian mint (25000 coins) in proof.



The capture in engraving of the graceful wing span in action among the grasses is an outst

 

Dynamite shot of the 'Humpback' Mandy......

 

I don't think anyone really cares, but I'll finish it anyway.

Mandy

 

Please do finish.

 

Im enjoying reading the info and seeing the pics. Do continue! :smile

 

White-Winged Flufftail: Zambia

Zambia contributed to the WWF 25th anniversary a coins celebrating the White-Winged Flufftail ( Sarothrura ayesi ).

The bird is a kind of rail, the family of Rallidae, birds which generally are either flightless or weak flyers. Interestingly enough, the weakness of flight means that when they migrated they often get blown off course and as a result have come to inhabit many isolated islands. The family is considered somewhat primitive and generally live in marsh lands.



A very rare species of Africa, they come in chestnut color with a whitish chin. I can't find much more information than on the flufftail, and avian classifications and families, although a lot of exciting work has been done in the field in the last 20 years.







The coin is a 10 Kwacha 0.925 Silver fineness, with a weight of 27.22 grms. and a diameter of 40mm, one of the largest coins in the collection.

It was minted in the British royal mint in proof grade, 25,000 specimens.

 

How much money do you have left Amanda?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1987-Sierra...4451168?pt=US_World_Coins&hash=item519fdd99e0