[13] Canis chanco was the scientific name proposed by John Edward Gray in 1863, who described a skin of a wolf that was shot in Chinese Tartary.

[19] In 1941, Reginald Pocock corroborated this assessment after reviewing wolf skins and skulls in the collection of the Natural History Museum, London.

[10] In April 2009, Canis himalayensis was proposed as a distinct wolf species through the Nomenclature Specialist on the CITES Animals Committee.

The proposal was based on one study that relied on only a limited number of museum and zoo samples that may not have been representative of the wild population.

[7][22] The committee recommended against this proposal, but suggested that the name be entered into the CITES species database as a synonym for Canis lupus.

[7] This genetic lineage shows a 3.9% divergence in the mDNA cytochrome b gene when compared with the Holarctic grey wolf, which may justify it being classified as a distinct species.

The group determined that the earliest available Latin name is Canis chanco Gray, 1863, but the geographic location of the holotype is unclear.

[8] The Himalayan wolf has a thick, woolly fur that is dull earthy-brown on the back and tail, and yellowish-white on the face, tummy, and limbs.

[36] Analysis of scat samples from two wolves collected in upper Dolpo in Nepal matched the Himalayan wolf.

[22] Fecal remains of four wolves collected in the upper Mustang region of the Annapurna Conservation Area also fell within the Himalayan wolf clade but formed a separate haplotype from those previously studied.

The population in Qinghai had grown, though, showing a gene flow of 16% from Chinese indigenous dogs and 2% of the dingo's genome.

Some wolves in China and Mongolia also fall within the Himalayan wolf clade, indicating a common maternal ancestor and a wide distribution.

On this tree, the term “basal” is used to describe a lineage that forms a branch diverging nearest to the common ancestor.

The most common coat pattern found in modern wolves is agouti, in which the upperside of the body has banded hairs and the underside exhibits lighter shading.

This result suggests a common origin for dominant yellow in dogs and white in wolves but without recent gene flow, because this clade was found to be basal to the golden jackal and genetically distinct from all other canids.

The most recent common ancestor of the golden jackal and the wolf lineage dates back to 2 million YBP.

The study concludes that during the Late Pleistocene, natural selection laid the genetic foundation for modern coat colour diversity in dogs and wolves.

The study inferred that the most recent common ancestor for all other Canis lupus specimens – modern and extinct – was 80,000 years before present.

[3] In China, the Himalayan wolf lives on the Tibetan Plateau in the provinces of Gansu, Qinghai, Tibet,[47][48] and western Sichuan.

[8] In northern India, it occurs in the Union Territory of Ladakh and in the Lahaul and Spiti region in northeastern Himachal Pradesh.

[20] In 2004, the Himalayan wolf population in India was estimated to consist of 350 individuals ranging across an area of about 70,000 km2 (27,000 sq mi).

[49] In 2013, a wolf was photographed by a camera trap installed at an elevation around 3,500 m (11,500 ft) near the Sunderdhunga Glacier in Uttarakhand's Bageshwar district.

To protect them, securing healthy wild prey populations through setting aside wildlife habitat reserves and refuges is essential.

It is listed as endangered in Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand, where a large portion of the wolf population lives outside the protected area network.

They were captured in the wild and were kept at the Padmaja Naidu Himalayan Zoological Park in West Bengal, and in the Kufri Zoo in Himachal Pradesh.