If there's one thing that was prominent during the emergence of late 90's 3D platforming it was battling crappy third person cameras. If there were two things that were prominent during the emergence of late 90's 3D it was battling crappy third person cameras and mindlessly hunting after an endless onslaught of collectibles that developers threw at you.
These days if you told me that I had to collect 976 coins in order to 100% complete one of my favorite platformers there's one thing I'd tell you:
"That's not happening."
However, if I was to tell you two things it would be:
"That's not happening."
Closely followed by:
"That's not even accurate. Now you need to collect 977 coins in order to 100% complete one of my favorite platformers from the late 90's."
Then I'd go back to playing whatever game it is that I'm currently playing and ignoring every collectible and achievement in. Yes, for a gamer that's blasphemous. I'm a little ashamed of myself for even admitting one of my deepest secrets but ain't nobody got time for that anymore. Gone are the days of being 8 years old mindlessly collecting things and somehow having fun with it.
Anyways, rambling aside, I would say that second thing to you because now it's the truth.
After 17 years a speed runner has found a new rainbow coin in Donkey Kong 64 hidden in a patch of grass in Fungi Forest, and that's just insane to me. So now there are no longer 976 coins in the game, now there are 977.
The coin lies hidden in a patch of grass entirely hidden, as it is contained within an entirely concealed dirt mound. It's entirely reachable without any sort of tool assist or glitching.
So there it has sat for the last 17 years, completely hidden, while the developers laughed to themselves knowing that everything had not been discovered by the avid speedrunning community.
Either that or they themselves had forgotten about its existence entirely.
The coin was discovered by speedrunner 'Isotarge' who encountered it
He went on to confirm that the coin was, in fact, accessible on a normal playthrough although he had found it using a scripting tool.
Here's a video of the coin and it's location:
Sorry 100% completionists and speed runners, guess it's time to go for it all over again. I won't be joining in that venture, but I think it's definitely time to hook up the N64 again.