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How are colugos related to primates?

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Illustration comparing the body plans of representative anthropoids, showing a male western lowland gorilla, a male human, a male bonobo, a female Bornean orangutan, and male and female northern white-cheeked gibbons, all labeled and depicted to scale. — primate Representative apes (superfamily Hominoidea).

Colugos, also known as flying lemurs, are not primates, though they are considered to be their closest living relatives.1

While colugos were once mistakenly classified as insectivores, anatomical studies of their brains and teeth, along with molecular data, confirm their close evolutionary relationship to the order Primates. Some researchers have noted that colugos and primates share specific features of the visual system, though it remains a subject of scientific debate whether these traits were inherited from a common ancestor or evolved independently.12

It is important to clarify that colugos are distinct from colobus monkeys. While the name "flying lemur" might suggest a connection to the primate suborder Strepsirrhini (which includes true lemurs), colugos belong to their own distinct order, Dermoptera, whereas colobus monkeys are true primates classified within the family Cercopithecidae.13