A 2025 study compiled museum specimens and recent capture records from Kazakhstan, Russia, and Mongolia. Literature cited in that study describes flat-headed voles living in family groups or colonies among rocky shelters and storing plants for winter.
The original description quoted in the 2025 paper characterizes the nominate subspecies, Alticola strelzowi strelzowi, as relatively dark gray with a brownish tinge. The paper says another subspecies, A. s. desertorum, is paler.
Observations cited by the paper identify rocky shelters as an important factor shaping where these voles settle. They live there in families or colonies and store dry plants for winter; these details come from earlier studies cited in the 2025 paper.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.