Last updated at 16:51 02 November 2007

It may not resemble anyone or anything you'd run into at a family reunion.

But this furry kite is apparently one of our closest living relatives.

Scientists say the colugo, which looks like a cross between a bat and a squirrel, is the last surviving example of a group of mammals called dermopterans.

After our fellow primates - apes, monkeys and lemurs - dermopterans apparently share the most genetic markers with us.

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An announcement today will settle a debate that has been raging among scientists.

Since 1999, it has been recognised that dermopterans, primates and another family of mammals, scandentians, belong to a single large family known as the Euarchonta.

Until now, however, many believed scandentians - of which the Asian tree shrew is the only living example - were closest to us.

For the latest study, published today in the journal Science, researchers compared major DNA alterations, called indels, in all three Euarchonta members.

Only one pointed to a tree shrew connection. But there were seven rare genetic changes linking primates and colugos.

The study's co-author William Murphy, from Texas A&M University, said: "Our molecular trees indicate that primates and colugos split approximately 86million years ago."

In the light of the primate connection, the scientists are calling for colugos to have their full genome sequenced.

The two remaining varieties of colugo live in the rainforests of the Philippines and Indonesia and other South-East Asian countries.

They travel from tree to tree on "wings" made from skin stretched between their limbs.