Given that it shares genetic material and osteological characteristics with the eagle-owl, yet also seems to share some characteristics with the other three fish owls (especially the brown species), the place of the Blakiston's fish owls in this evolutionary chain is ambiguous. Some authors have wondered whether the Blakiston's represents an intermediate step between traditional eagle-owls and the other fish owls, despite the current gap in distribution between Blakiston's and other fish owls. Whether other Asian eagle-owls with sideways slanting ear-tufts, namely the spot-bellied ("B. nipalensis"), the barred ("B. sumatranus") and especially the somewhat superficially fish owl-like dusky eagle-owl ("B. coromandus") are closely related to the fish owls and/or the Blakiston's is also unclear.