Discovered in Brazil and dating to the Early Cretaceous, Tupandactylus is a pterosaur known from two species, T. imperator and T. navigans. They vary in size, with Imperator having a wingspan of up to 4 m, while Navigans likely topped out at 2.7 m. It’s part of a group called the tapejarids, and like most of those, it has a large crest on its head, formed from keratinous fibres, and framed by bone. In Navigans, the crest was taller and more vertical in aspect, but Imperator had a more expansive, rounder lookm as you can see on the coin depiction, so it’s clear we have Tupandactylus imperator here. It also had a smaller crest running off its lower beak.

It’s likely that Tupandactylus was a forest floor forager, being largely herbivorous in diet, and while capable of flight, probably used it to escape predators, rather than spending considerable time in the air. Indeed, the evidence suggests its flight time was quite restricted, lacking the structures needed to offset the drag of its crests. These strange, unwieldy animals may well have been brightly coloured, as they’re often depicted in modern palaeoart, or more subdued, given their need to forage in an environment that was rich with predators.

The main offering is a one-ounce bullion coin with a 10,000 mintage, and for those that prefer some colour, a coloured version of that, of which just 2,000 will struck. Rounding it out with the same 2,000 mintage is an affordable gold coin, a half-gram minigold. They all employ the same base design. The Tupandactylus is well depicted from what we know, and is as good a piece of speculation as any other. It’s certainly an attractive image, maintaining the high standards of this series.

The design, with its inscribed timeline border and title, follows exactly the style set down in that first T. Rex coin back in 2020, and it’s aged beautifully, free of gimmickry, and seated very much in actual natural history. Prehistoric Life II is the second range of 12 bullion coins that Emporium Hamburg have embarked upon, and this is the eighth release in that second series, with one more to come for 2026, and three more in 2027. You can see the first series in our Bullion Profile here, and the second in its own profile here. Available to order from today.