[2] Pleistocene coyotes were also likely more specialized carnivores than their descendants, as their teeth were more adapted to shearing meat, showing fewer grinding surfaces which were better suited for processing vegetation.

The lower jaw was also deeper, and the molars showed more signs of wear and breakage than modern populations, thus indicating that the animals consumed more bone than today.

[5] Behaviorally, it is likely to have been more social than the modern coyote, as its remains are the third most common in the La Brea Tar Pits, after dire wolves and sabre-toothed cats, both thought to be gregarious species.

[2] Furthermore, Pleistocene coyotes were unable to successfully exploit the big game hunting niche left vacant after the extinction of the dire wolf, as that gap was rapidly filled by gray wolves.

The most genetically basal coyote mDNA clade pre-dates the Late Glacial Maximum and is a haplotype that can only be found in the Eastern wolf.

For this reason, the study postulated that the Pleistocene "coyote" and the common ancestor of red and eastern wolves had connectivity between 50,000 and 60,000 years ago.

This relatively recent connectivity was interpreted as indicating conspecificity, leading to the conclusion that the Pleistocene "coyote" was actually an extinct western population of the red wolf.

The study postulated that a prehistoric expansion of true coyotes into California led to the outbreeding and extirpation of the western red wolf.