The closest living relatives to humans on the evolutionary tree are

The chimpanzee. Although 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.