[5] Gotthilf Heinrich von Schubert maintained the belief that the horns were the claws of giant birds, and classified the animal under the name Gryphus antiquitatis, meaning "griffin of antiquity".

[6] One of the earliest scientific descriptions of an ancient rhinoceros species was made in 1769, when the naturalist Peter Simon Pallas wrote a report on his expeditions to Siberia where he found a skull and two horns in the permafrost.

[10] The geologist Heinrich Georg Bronn moved the species to Coelodonta in 1831 because of its differences in dental formation with members of the Rhinoceros genus.

A cladogram showing the relationships of C. antiquitatis to other Late Pleistocene-recent rhinoceros species based on genomic data is given below.

[33] This adaptation probably evolved as a result of the heavy pressure on the horn and face when the rhinoceros grazed underneath the thick snow.

[34] Unique to this rhino, the nasal bones were fused to the premaxillae, which is not the case in older Coelodonta types or today's rhinoceroses.

[35] This ossification inspired the junior synonym specific name tichorhinus, from Greek τειχος (teikhos) "wall", ῥις (ῥιν-) (rhis (rhin-)) "nose".

Fossil skulls indicate damage from the front horns of other rhinos,[37]  and lower jaws and back ribs show signs of being broken and re-formed, which may have also come from fighting.

[40] The apparent frequency of intraspecific combat, compared to recent rhinos, was likely a result of rapid climatic change during the last glacial period, when the animal faced increased stress from competition with other large herbivores.

[24] A strain vector biomechanical investigation of the skull, mandible and teeth of a well-preserved last cold stage individual recovered from Whitemoor Haye, Staffordshire, revealed musculature and dental characteristics that support a grazing feeding preference.

[41] Comparisons with living perissodactyls confirm that the woolly rhinoceros was a hindgut fermentor with a single stomach, consuming cellulose-rich, protein-poor fodder.

Woolly rhinos living in the Arctic during the Last Glacial Maximum consumed approximately equal volumes of forbs, such as Artemisia, and graminoids.

[42] Pollen analysis shows it also ate woody plants (including conifers, willows and alders),[26] along with flowers,[43] forbs and mosses.

[37] In 2014, Shpansky analysed the growth of woolly rhinoceros from its early life stages based on several lower jaw fragments and limb bones.

The most intensive growth in woolly rhinos occurred during the juvenile stage around 3 to 4 years of age with a shoulder height of 1.3 metres (4.3 ft).

By more than 14 years of age, woolly rhinos became fully mature, old adults with a shoulder height of 1.6 metres (5.2 ft).

[47] C. antiquitatis individuals of old age display extensive wear and loss of their anterior premolars as a result of tooth abrasion from their intensive grazing lifestyle.

[49] The rhino's main habitat was the mammoth steppe, a large, open landscape covered with wide ranges of grass and bushes.

[51] By the end of the Riss glaciation about 130,000 years ago, the woolly rhinoceros lived throughout northern Eurasia, spanning most of Europe, the Russian Plain, Siberia, and the Mongolian Plateau, ranging to extremes of 72° to 33°N.

[54] It seemingly did not cross the Bering land bridge during the last ice age (which connected Asia to North America), with its easterly-most occurrence at the Chukotka Peninsula,[30] probably due to the low grass density and lack of suitable habitat in the Yukon combined with competition from other large herbivores on the frigid land bridge.

One specimen had injuries caused by human weaponry, with traces of a wound from a sharp object marking the shoulder and thigh, and a preserved spear was found near the carcass.

The animal's defining features are prominently drawn, complete with the raised back and hump, contrasting with its low-lying head.

One drawing from Font-de-Gaume shows a noticeably higher head posture, and others were drawn in red pigments in the Kapova Cave in the Ural Mountains.

[70] The site of Dolní Věstonice in Moravia, Czech Republic, was found with more than seven hundred statuettes of animals, many of woolly rhinoceroses.

[70] Analysis of the nuclear genome suggests that the woolly rhinoceros experienced a population expansion beginning around 30,000 years ago.

The youngest records of the species coincide with the onset of the Bølling–Allerød warming, which likely resulted in increased precipitation (including snowfall), which transformed the woolly rhinoceros' preferred low-growing grass and herb habitat into one dominated by shrubs and trees.

[73] The presence of large numbers of cervical ribs in specimens from the Netherlands may have been due to inbreeding or harsh environmental conditions.

[71] A Holocene survival of the species has been suggested by the finding of environmental DNA of the woolly rhinoceros in sediments of the Kolyma region of Northeast Siberia dating to 9,800 ± 200 years ago.

[26][84] In 1976, schoolchildren on a class trip found a 20,000-year-old rhinoceros skeleton on the Aldan River's left bank, uncovering a skull with both horns, a spine, ribs and limb bones.

[9] In September 2014, a mummified young rhinoceros was discovered by two hunters, Alexander “Sasha” Banderov and Simeon Ivanov, at a tributary of the Semyulyakh River in the Abyysky District in Yakutia, Russia.