[11] In 2022, a new species Canis lupus bohemica was taxonomically described after having been discovered in the Bat Cave system located near Srbsko, Central Bohemia, Czech Republic.

Based on the size of its dental rows, the Don wolf was bigger than modern wolves from the tundra or the Middle Russian taiga.

[5] The large wolf Canis lupus maximus Boudadi-Maligne, 2012 was a subspecies larger than all other known fossil and extant wolves from Western Europe.

The size of these wolves are thought to be an adaptation to a cold environment (Bergmann's rule) and plentiful game as their remains have been found in association with reindeer fossils.

[6] A 2014 study found wolves in Late Pleistocene Italy were comparable in tooth morphology – and therefore in size – with C. l. maximus from France.

These wolves were found near Avetrana, Taranto and near Buco del Frate, Brescia and Pocala cave in Friuli-Venezia Giulia.

[14] During the Late Pleistocene, C. l. spelaeus exhibited a changed skeletal development due to the harsh climatic and environmental conditions, and a preference for taking larger prey.

This resulted in a larger and more robust wolf with a shortened rostrum, a pronounced development of the temporalis muscles, and proportionally enlarged and wider premolars and carnassials.

These features were specialised adaptations for the processing of fast-freezing carcasses associated with the hunting and scavenging of larger prey.

Some populations of C. l. spelaeus showed an increase in tooth breakage when compared with the extant C. lupus because they were habitual bone crackers.

[15] Their dens have been identified, with the Zoolithen Cave supporting a large population and has yielded more than 380 bones as well as several skulls (including a holotype).

The abundant faeces seem to play a role in the "orientation" for trail tracking, similar to modern wolves, and less as den marking.

Remains of a skeleton of at least one high adult wolf also might have been the result of a battle within the cave with the bears, the same as in the lion taphonomic record.

[11] The ecology of the early to middle Late Pleistocene wolves on the mammoth steppe and the boreal forests is not known, nor is whether they used caves as dens.

[11] All of the top predators in Europe commenced going extinct with the loss of the pleistocene megafauna when conditions became colder during the peak of the Last Glacial Maximum around 23,000 years ago.

[22][19] The data supports the hypothesis that dog domestication preceded the emergence of agriculture[20] and was initiated close to the Last Glacial Maximum when hunter-gatherers preyed on megafauna.