The history of human-animal relations has become an important sub-field within the broader field of environmental history; environmental history in turn has become one of the most important fields within historical investigation today. Histories and travelogues on the Mongol empire mention a number of animals that are either unusual in themselves or found clustered in unusual human-animal contexts. Study of these animals and their contexts thus sheds useful light on the human-animal relations of the Mongol empire.