with the steppe eagles in the wild, once in Turkey and at least three times in Kazakhstan. Each hybrid with imperial eagles has been known to involve pairs of subadult or juvenile eagles and all known hybrid pairings were between male steppe eagles (or apparent steppe-imperial hybrids themselves) mated to female imperial eagles. Some of these hybrid pairs also produced seemingly healthy young with roughly intermediate characteristics.

The Steppe eagle has been generally considered to contain two subspecies.