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  • NEWS FEATURE

Beyond coronavirus: the virus discoveries transforming biology

SARS-CoV-2 is just one of nonillions of viruses on our planet, and scientists are rapidly identifying legions of new species.
  1. Amber Dance

    1. Amber Dance is a science journalist in Los Angeles, California.

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A composite image of nine coloured micrographs of virus species with different shapes and sizes

Viruses come in all shapes and sizes, such as the giant mimivirus (top right) and the lunar-lander-shaped bacteriophage (centre). Credit: False-colour electron micrographs (not to same scale). Top row L–R: Smallpox virus; Acidianus bottle-shaped virus; Acanthamoeba polyphaga mimivirus. centre row L–R: Rabies virus; T4 bacteriophage; rotavirus. Bottom row L–R: Ebola virus; Tobacco rattle virus; HIV-2. SPL; M. Häring et al./J. Virol.; E. Ghigo et al./PLOS Pathog.; Frederick A. Murphy/CDC Global

Mya Breitbart has hunted novel viruses in African termite mounds, Antarctic seals and water from the Red Sea. But to hit pay dirt, she has only to step into her back garden in Florida. Hanging around her swimming pool are spiny-backed orbweavers (Gasteracantha cancriformis) — striking spiders with bulbous white bodies, black speckles and six scarlet spikes that make them look like a piece of medieval weaponry. Even more striking for Breitbart, a viral ecologist at the University of South Florida in St Petersburg, was what was inside. When she and her colleagues collected a few spiders and ground them up, they found two viruses previously unknown to science1.

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Nature 595, 22-25 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-01749-7

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