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
Golden-headed quetzal the family Trogonidae, which is made up of birds found in tropical rainforests worldwide. The word quetzal comes from the Nahuatl (the Aztec language) word "quetzalli" (from the root "quetz" meaning "stand"), which translates to "long green plume" or "tail feather of the quetzal". Quetzal is usually specifically used to refer to the resplendent quetzal ("Pharomachrus mocinno") first described by Pablo de la Llave in 1832 but in reality it applies to all members of the genera "Pharomachrus" and "Euptilotis". "Pharomachrus", coined by Pablo de la Llave, stems from Ancient Greek "pharos" meaning "mantle" or "cloak" and "makros" meaning "long"