Kazakh semi-desert ("Ovis ammon collium"), goitered gazelle ("Gazella subgutterosa"), Pallas's cat ("Otocolobus manul"), gray wolf ("Canis lupus"), European badger ("Meles meles") and marbled polecat ("Vormela peregusna"). Przewalski's horse ("Equus ferus przewalskii") is native to the ecoregion, but has not been seen in it since 1968. Avian species include the common crane ("Grus grus"), demoiselle crane ("Anthropoides virgo"), red-headed bunting ("Emberiza bruniceps"), larks ("Alaudidae"), wheatears ("Oenanthe"), pipits ("Anthus" spp.), black-bellied sandgrouse ("Pterocles orientalis"), Pallas’s sandgrouse ("Syrrhaptes paradoxus"), steppe eagle ("Aquila rapax"), golden eagle ("Aquila chrysaetos"), peregrine falcon ("Falco peregrinus") and the saker falcon ("Falco cherrug"). Agriculture, overgrazing, and fragmentation of habitat from human
River Meles be subject to contradictory views among scholars and other concerned parties. Homer is connected with the valley of Smyrna and the banks of the Meles. His figure was one of the stock types on coins of Smyrna, one class of which showed the poet sitting, holding a volumen on his knees, and supporting his chin on his right hand was called "Homerian" by numismatists. The epithet "Melesigenes" (which means, "son of Meles" was applied to him. The cave where he was to compose his poems was described as being near the source of the river, his temple, the Homereion, stood