TRIASSIC Life in the Water Trias Prehistoric Life Silver Coin 20€ Euro Austria 2013

The Triassic spanned from 251 to 200 million years BC. This timeline, a detail linking the whole series, appears on the lower half of the coin's obverse beneath an ammonite, an extinct sea-dwelling cephalopod shown in both live and fossilised form, the latter inspired by a fossil on display in the Natural History Museum Vienna. The upper half of the coin's reverse shows an Ichthyosaurus with an ammonite in its long, narrow jaws, while a Nothosaurus swims below. Both animals roamed the seas during the middle and upper Triassic period in what would today be the Mediterranean Sea. The coin's palpable underwater ambience is beautifully achieved with the help of aquatic flora that appear to move beneath the ripples of the surface.