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LiveScience
LiveScience
Clarissa Brincat

Do humans and chimps really share nearly 99% of their DNA?

A photo of a human and chimpanzee holding hands.

Chimpanzees, along with bonobos, are humans' closest living relatives. In fact, you may have heard that humans and chimps share 98.8% of their DNA.

But is this actually true? And what does "similar DNA" actually mean?

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