The Czech Mint dedicated the fourth and final silver coin from the cycle Animal Record Holders to dragonflies. These winged arthropods that occur in countless variations around the world, are the fastest flying insects.

Dragonflies use this record feature when hunting. The mosquito flips its wings five hundred times a second, the dragonfly only thirty times. Despite this surprisingly low frequency, dragonflies reach speeds over 50 kilometers per hour when flying. They can swiftly change direction, fly backwards, sideways, up and down, and float like a helicopter. Exceptional agility allows dragonflies to hunt and consume some species of prey in flight. Big eyes consisting of thousands of tiny eyes and a specialized nervous system that allows to track the pursued target unmistakably also help when hunting. Some dragonflies have yet another record performance in flight. When migrating, they use the winds that seasonally bath in many parts of the world and let them drift thousands of kilometers away. This is how they can overcome the entire ocean …

Medal maker Petr Patka, DiS., depicted a sophisticated detail of a dragonfly head on the reverse side of the coin, accompanied by an inscription ODONATA - ie the Latin name of this insect order. The surface of the coin is embellished with patina, which also underlines the finest details. The medal maker David Kružliak became the author of the obverse side which is common to all coins from the cycle. The composition of the obverse side presents a pair of natural scenery and attributes of the island of Niue, which provides the Czech Mint with a foreign license to issue its own commemorative coins. They are the profile and the name of Elizabeth II, the nominal value of 1 DOLLAR (NZD) and the year of the issue 2019.

A spectacular packaging is an integral part of the coin. It contains photographs, together with Czech-English text that describes the record-breaking features of the dragonfly. Remember that you can store coins from the Animal Record Cycle in a practical collector´s box.