Meles (genus) Meles (genus) Meles is a genus of badgers containing three living species, the Japanese badger ("Meles anakuma"), Asian badger ("Meles leucurus"), and European badger ("Meles meles"). In an older categorization, they were seen as a single species with three subspecies ("Meles meles anakuma", "Meles meles leucurus" and "Meles meles meles"). There are also several extinct members of the genus. The genus "Meles" was erected by French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson in 1762 after Carl Linnaeus had described the Eurasian badger "Meles meles" in 1758. This animal had a very extensive range over most of temperate Europe and Asia and there
River Meles in Buca and with Kemer Brook flowing through İzmir's neighboring district of Konak before reaching the sea, these two localities are particularly insistent in their claims for associating Meles with the westernmost stream, for understandable reasons. A third candidate takes as basis an anonymous Homeric hymn of unknown date to Artemis which relates that the goddess, "having watered her horses in deep-reeded Meles, drove swiftly through Smyrna to Klaros rich in vines". It has been argued that, if the hymn refers to old Smyrna in its northeastern corner of the Gulf, and if the goddess came to Meles before she