Which Order Do Humans Belong To?
Human beings belong to the primate order, which is in the mammalia class. Other members of the primate order include gorillas, apes and lemurs.
Order is one of seven levels or ranks used in biological classification, not including subdivisions. The highest level of classification is the kingdom; human beings belong to the kingdom of animalia. Kingdom is then broken down into phylum followed by class. For humans, the phylum is chordata and the class is mammalia. The class can be further divided into a subclass and an infraclass. Order is the next rank following class with family, genus and species completing the classification ranks. Humans belong to the hominidae family. Homo sapiens are the genus and species for humans.
The primate order is made up of simians and prosimians, or anthropoids. Characteristics of primates include larger brains compared to other mammals and opposable thumbs. Aside from earth-dwelling humans, most primates are tree dwellers.
