Our closest animal relatives
Our closest animal relatives are the great apes: chimpanzees, orang-utans and gorillas. About 98 per cent of the DNA in your genes is exactly the same as in chimpanzees, making you as closely related to a chimp as horses are to zebras. Chimps and humans share a common ancestor, who was probably swinging through the trees about 5 million years ago. Many other species of ape around at the same time eventually became extinct.
