Closest primate to man is

As scientists try and solve the mystery of how we originated, an invaluable source of clues is the chimpanzee. Humanity did not evolve from the chimpanzee, which has spent time evolving on its own path for millions of years from our last common ancestor, just as we have. Still, chimps are our closest living relatives. We share 98.8 percent of their DNA and new research is continuing to shed light on just how similar we remain, promising to yield insights into the roots we both stem from. Based on the analysis of the sequence of 7100 nucleotides in a segment of DNA from the haemoglobin gene suggests that humans and chimpanzees are closer to one another than chimpanzees and gorillas. They matched at 98.8% of the bases in man and chimpanzee and 97.9% with gorilla and man. So, the gorilla is closest primate to man after chimpanzee than Rhesus monkey, orangutans and lemur.