Simian adenovirus( SAdV) ，as common viral agent persistent in respiratory and gastrointestinal tract of non-human primates，can cause pneumonia，gastroenteritis and conjunctivitis and spread mainly by Fecal-oral way． SadV can infect macaques，chimpanzees，baboons，etal belonging to genus Mastadenovirus ． Some resarchers agured that SadV had strict species specificity． Other reports suggested that cross species transmission may be a common occurance and is zoonotic transmission． No report says SadV can infect human，but found a novel adenovirus serotype that may be recombination with a human adenovirus． SadV and HadV are close，casuing similar clinical symptoms，which make it a good model for adenovirus research． To date，the goal of developing a non-human primate adenovirus model has been made to study the mechanisms of infection and promote progress on gene therapies and genetic vaccines with adenovirus vector． However，little is known about the prevalence of adenovirus infection in non-human primates． This article reviewed discovery and classification，biological characterization，and detection of SAdV so as to provide some useful insights for researchers．