Dietary biology of the Eurasian eagle-owl own weight, and will kill the young of much larger species such as European otter ("Lutra lutra") and Eurasian badger ("Meles meles"). However, the single most widely reported carnivore is the red fox ("Vulpes vulpes"), as they’ve been recorded in the diet from Denmark and Spain to the Russian Far East. Many fox specimens taken by eagle-owls are young individuals or subadults. Some studies posited that the average fox taken as weighing about , about equal to the eagle-owl’s own weight, but another noted fox specimens killed that were estimated to weigh , much larger than the eagle-owls. At least
Meles (genus) Primorskii. Genetic studies of mitochondrial DNA shows the separation of two variants on either side of the Volga but their exact taxonomic rank remains undefined. A further study of cheek teeth from individuals across the entire range supports this division and provides confirmation that "M. meles" and "M. anakuma" are indeed separate species. A further species is "Meles thorali" from the late Pleistocene, known only from fossil remains, specimens of which have been found at Saint-Vallier, Drôme, in southeastern France and Binagady, in Azerbaijan. These have large cheek teeth and characteristics intermediate between "M. meles" and "M. anakuma". It is