[9] The Indian wolf was first described to Western science in 1831 by the British ornithologist William Henry Sykes under the binomial Canis pallipes.

[13] The proposal was based on one study[5] that relied on only a limited number of museum and zoo samples that may not have been representative of the wild population, and a call for further fieldwork was made.

These findings suggest that the Indian gray wolf is not the pallipes found in the Middle East and Central Asia.

[21] A study demonstrated minor morphological variations of the skull of Iranian wolves but these did not vary enough to classify them as being a separate subspecies, however their genetic lineage has not been verified.

In the latter country, the mutation was found to be naturally occurring, unlike in North American gray wolves, which have inherited the Kb allele responsible for melanism from past interbreeding with dogs.

[7][34] In addition to leading antelopes into an ambush, Indian wolves can chase blackbucks down hills for a short-term burst in speed.

Indian wolves may also select a sick or injured animal and separate it from the herd, pursuing it to exhaustion.

[35] Currently, Israel's conservation policies and effective law enforcement maintain a moderately sized wolf population, which radiates into neighbouring countries.

Turkey may play an important role in maintaining wolves in the region, due to its contiguity with Central Asia.

[36] Although widespread throughout the country, being absent only in the central desert and Dasht-e Lut, there is no reliable estimation on the wolf's population size there.

It has been estimated that there are about 300 wolves in approximately 60,000 km2 (23,000 sq mi) of Jammu and Kashmir in northern India, and 50 more in Himachal Pradesh.

[36] Hindus traditionally considered the hunting of wolves, even dangerous ones, as taboo, for fear of causing a bad harvest.

[46] The Indian wolf is protected since 1972 and classified as Endangered, with many populations lingering in low numbers or living in areas increasingly used by humans.

In Jaunpur, Pratapgarh and Sultanpur in Uttar Pradesh, wolves killed 21 children and mauled 16 others from March 27, 1996, to July 1, 1996.

Adults have been attacked on occasion, including an incident in which a policeman was killed and partially eaten by three wolves after dismounting from his horse to relieve himself.

[51] On January 2, 2005, in the village of Vali Asr, near the town of Torbat Heydariya, northeastern Iran, a wolf pack attacked a homeless man in front of witnesses.

This causes human-wolf conflicts and wolf persecution since human population density is high in these areas.

[53] Grass is quickly grazed by livestock in unprotected grasslands that cannot sustain a blackbuck population afterward.

[34] Among domestic animals, goats are the primary target for Indian wolves, comprising 66% of wolf attacks around the Jhelum district, with sheep following at 27%.

[34] It is not uncommon for locals to exaggerate the magnitude of Indian wolf depredation and tell tales of their predatory wiles, contributing to hatred of the animal.

[7][8] The people of Maharashtra would sing labad landga dhong kartay, in Marathi which translates to "Wolves are clever animals and will fool you with their devilish methods.

[56] In the Rig Veda, Rijrsava is blinded by his father as punishment for having given 101 of his family's sheep to a she-wolf, who in turn prays to the Ashvins to restore his sight.

[58] The wolf has an ambivalent reputation in Iranian culture, being demonised in the Avestas as a creation of Ahriman,[57] and still features in contemporary cautionary tales told to misbehaving children.

[59] Indian wolves take a central role in Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book series, in which a pack in the Seoni area of Madhya Pradesh adopts the feral child Mowgli, and teaches him how to survive in the jungle while protecting him from the Bengal tiger Shere Khan.