Pepper in the backyard of his home in Gainesville, Fla. (Photo: John Lednicki)
Last year, a scientist's cat gained fame for its role in discovering the first known jaylong virus in the United States. Now, he's repeated his success by delivering another animal with the previously unknown virus.
The new virus was found in a dead Everglades shrew (Blarina peninsulae) that Pepper the cat brought home after a successful hunt near his home in Gainesville, Florida. John Lednicki, Pepper's owner and a virologist at the University of Florida, collected his pet's trophy and took it to a lab for analysis.
The study found that the shrew was carrying a previously unknown strain of orthoreovirus, a poorly understood genus of viruses known to infect birds and a variety of mammals, including humans, white-tailed deer, and bats. Lednicki and his colleagues published their findings June 10 in the journal Microbiology Resource Announcements.
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Sourse: www.livescience.com
