Human–Chimp DNA Similarity: 99%, 95%, or 85%?
TL;DR
The familiar claim that humans are about 99% chimpanzee is based on a real measurement, but it applies only to a narrow type of comparison. It usually means ~98–99% identity for single-nucleotide variants (SNVs) in DNA regions that align cleanly.
It gets repeated as if it described the entire genome, but whole genomes differ not only by SNVs. They a…
