Guatemalan quetzal Guatemalan quetzal The quetzal (; code: GTQ) is the currency of Guatemala, named after the national bird of Guatemala, the resplendent quetzal. In ancient Mayan culture, the quetzal bird's tail feathers were used as currency. It is divided into 100 "centavos" or "lenes" in Guatemalan slang. The plural is "quetzales". The quetzal was introduced in 1925 during the term of President José María Orellana, whose image appears on the obverse of the one-quetzal bill. It replaced the peso. Until 1987, the quetzal was pegged to and domestically equal to the United States dollar and before the pegging to the US
Resplendent quetzal country's currency, the Guatemalan quetzal (abbreviation GTQ). The resplendent quetzal was first described by Mexican naturalist Pablo de La Llave in 1832. It is one of five species of the genus "Pharomachrus" known as quetzals. The term "quetzal" was originally used for just this species, but is now applied to all members of the genera "Pharomachrus" and "Euptilotis". Two subspecies are recognised, "P. m. mocinno" and "P. m. costaricensis". The epithet "mocinno" is Llave's Latinization of the name of the biologist J. M. Mociño, a mentor of his. (It is sometimes spelled "mocino", but "ñ" was formerly spelled "nn" in