Guatemalan quetzal on August 20, 2007. The Bank of Guatemala has also introduced a 5 quetzal polymer banknote on November 14, 2011. 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,
Resplendent quetzal Spanish, so the spelling with "nn" is justified and in any case now official.) The word "quetzal" came from Nahuatl (Aztec), where "quetzalli" (from the root "quetza" = "stand") meant "tall upstanding plume" and then "quetzal tail feather"; from that Nahuatl "quetzaltotōtl" means "quetzal-feather bird" and thus "quetzal". This species is long, plus up to of tail streamer for the male, and weighs about . It is the largest representative of the trogon order. The subspecies "costaricensis" is slightly smaller than the nominate race, with tail plumes that are both shorter and narrower. Resplendent quetzals have a green body (showing