The characteristic feature of these animals was their well-developed woolly coat that protected them from low temperatures and cold winds. The low position of their head and their square lips allowed picking up their main forage – steppe and tundra vegetation.
The increasingly severe continental climate affected the appearance and habits of these animals creating truly northern rhinoceroses able to survive even in the tundra.
Their morphology underwent changes. The position of their head became different – it moved lower to the ground, their skulls elongated even further and narrowed, eye-sockets moved closer towards the occiput, and their teeth evolved to adjust to masticating harsh steppe vegetation. For protection from the intensifying cold, they developed dense woolly coats.
At the end of Pleistocene – beginning of Holocene, Coelodonta largely disappeared. Presumably, it happened mainly due to the climate change which accompanied the end of the last ice age: due to global warming and increased humidity, the area suitable for woolly rhinoceroses dramatically decreased.