"Wild game of every sort abounds. There are great quantities of wild sheep of huge size. Their horns grow to as much as six palms in length and are never less than three or four. From these horns, the shepherds make big bowls from which they feed and also fences to keep in their flocks".

- The Travels of Marco Polo

The tales of Marco Polo have challenged many men over the past centuries to search for the fabled places and animals of which he wrote on his journey from Venice to Peking in the 13th century. Marco Polo himself was ridiculed for his stories of giant sheep and the 'Roof of the World' upon his return to Venice. It wasn't until the early 1800s when British explorers ventured onto the Pamir plateaus, high in China's far west, that rumours of the sheep surfaced again. Local nomads spoke of the 'rasa': an animal bigger than a cow yet smaller than a horse. In 1838, Lt. John Woods, a British Officer exploring the Afghan Pamirs near the Chinese border, made enquiries and was soon presented with a sheep like no other ever seen by Western eyes and whose horns were of an astonishing size. These horns were sent to the Royal Society in London who confirmed the existence of this unique species and in honour of the greatest of all explorers, named it Ovis poli; the Marco Polo sheep.