# What is the best animal on a coin or banknote?

> Money is the most-handled design in any country, and a lot of it has an animal on it. Some choices are obvious, some are strange.

*By YPB Team · Published August 27, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/what-is-the-best-animal-on-a-coin-or-banknote*

---

## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **Bald Eagle**
   On the reverse of the American quarter, the dollar and most gold bullion the mint has struck.
2. **Common Loon**
   On the Canadian one-dollar coin, which is universally called the loonie because of it.
3. **North American Beaver**
   On the Canadian nickel since 1937, and a national symbol since the fur trade.
4. **Red Kangaroo**
   On the Australian one-dollar coin, five of them at once.
5. **Kiwi**
   On the New Zealand dollar coin, and the reason New Zealanders are called Kiwis.
6. **Giant Panda**
   On China's Panda bullion coins, redesigned every year since 1982.
7. **American Bison**
   On the Buffalo nickel of 1913 to 1938, one of the most admired American coin designs.
8. **Platypus**
   On the Australian twenty-cent piece, an animal European scientists first assumed was a hoax.
9. **Springbok**
   On South Africa's Krugerrand, the bullion coin that dominated the gold market.
10. **Lion**
   On the reverse of Bulgaria's lev coins and the arms of half of Europe's currencies before the euro.
11. **Short-beaked Echidna**
   On the Australian five-cent coin, one of only two egg-laying mammals alive.
12. **Emu**
   On the Australian fifty-cent piece, alongside the kangaroo on the arms.
13. **Golden Eagle**
   On every denomination of the Mexican peso, holding a snake on a cactus.
14. **Andean Condor**
   On Chilean and Colombian coinage, and the largest flying bird by combined weight and span.
15. **Arabian Oryx**
   On the Jordanian dinar and coins across the Gulf, after being brought back from extinction in the wild.

Tags: animals, money, symbols, countries