Which group of mammals includes humans, apes, and monkeys?

Humans, apes, and monkeys are all members of the mammalian group called primates. Primates are an order of mammals that also includes lemurs, lorises, tarsiers, and other close relatives.

Many primates share adaptations associated with life in trees, including grasping hands and feet, nails instead of claws on most digits, forward-facing eyes, and relatively large brains. Their eyes provide overlapping fields of view that improve depth perception, while flexible shoulders and mobile fingers help with climbing and handling food. These traits are general primate characteristics, not exclusive to humans.

A frequent classification mistake is treating apes as a type of monkey. In modern biological classification, apes and monkeys are separate branches within the primate order. Humans are apes, specifically hominins, and are therefore primates as well. Primates are also distinct from rodents, carnivorans, and ungulates, which are separate mammalian orders with different evolutionary histories.