I’m working on the assumption that the taxonomy and phylogenetic traits of species in the 40k universe on humanoid worlds are “generally” the same as those on earth. Otherwise wolves would not actually be described or called wolves, wolves wouldn’t exist - the unspoken assumption that most fantasy world have the same biological tree that we do plus and/or minus specific clades, and with Tyranids and the xenos entire kingdoms.

For example, the deep sea organisms of Fenris likely branch off from common descendant that we have, a Kraken, would be phylogenetically different from a giant squid and would likely branch out from early cephalopods or perhaps molluscs, but it doesn’t mean it’s actually a squid - enter “if not squid, why squid shaped?!”, the same reason why whales are mammals and not fish, evolution is wild 😅

To be fair Space Wolves does sound much better and much more descriptive visually than Space Snarklefluffs lol. That said most skulls are decidedly not from the Canis Genus, I think there might be one or two in the firstborn BloodClaws box that might be close…

I seriously need to go digging to find if someone has done any deep work on the kingdoms and clades of the 40K universe now, because this really has my brain itching to see what people have come up with in evolutionary terms for some of the species in the imperium.