What human beings

Human being, a culture-bearing primate classified in the genus Homo, especially the species H. sapiens. Human beings are anatomically similar and related to the great apes but are distinguished by a more highly developed brain and a resultant capacity for articulate speech and abstract reasoning. Traditionally, humans were considered the sole recent representatives of the family Hominidae, but recent findings indicate that chimpanzees and bonobos are more closely related to humans than are gorillas and orangutans and that the last common ancestor between the chimpanzee and human lines lived sometime between seven million and six million years ago. Therefore, all great apes are now gathered with humans into Hominidae, and within that family humans and their extinct ancestors are considered to make up the tribe Hominini. See also Homo sapiens; human evolution.