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Which living animals are the closest relatives of Homo sapiens?
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human evolution
An artist's depiction of five species of the human lineage.
The closest living relatives of Homo sapiens are the chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) and the bonobo (P. paniscus).12
Genetic analysis indicates that the human lineage diverged from the lineage leading to chimpanzees and bonobos approximately 6.5 to 9.3 million years ago. Humans, chimpanzees, and bonobosāalong with gorillasāare classified within the subfamily Homininae, part of the broader family Hominidae. While gorillas are also closely related to humans, they are more distantly related than chimpanzees and bonobos, and orangutans are more distant still.321456