We are humans and apes

Previously, I wrote about how Richard Dawkins claimed he was an African Ape. Fortuitously, I ran across an article in io9 by Annalee NewitzThe last time we redefined what it means to be human. Newitz clarifies the current cladogram, a diagram that shows relationships among organisms, for humans and their closest primate neighbors (from an evolutionary standpoint).

Humans today are the species sapiens, the genus Homo, the subfamily Homininae, the family Hominidae, the order Primates, the class Mammalia, and the kingdom Animalia. There are other classifications, like tribe and subtribe, sub family, and other fine tuning, which has made the taxonomic classification of organisms complex, especially because of the use of Latin names. Moreover, there are a lot of similar sounding taxonomic groups for humans and great ape relatives. But let’s try to make it as clear as possible..

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