Wolves, horses and Mongols.
The wolves also prey on the sheep, goats and horses, however, which need protection - yet here, too, there is a delicate balance: by attacking the horses the wolves destroy the weakest ones, ensuring that the surviving ponies become hardy and agile.
The Mongols believed that it was those sorts of horses, the survivors of generations of wolf-attacks, that carried the cavalry of Genghis Khan and later the Manchus when they overran and conquered the Chinese.
But above all it was the qualities of the wolves - tactical, strategic, imaginative, flexible and merciless - that the observant warriors of the grasslands adopted to achieve their conquests.