"Virovores" discovered

9 January 2023 by Michael Williams

Healthcare

Along with carnivores and herbivores we now have virovores - organisms that eat viruses.

Since viruses are found absolutely everywhere, it’s inevitable that organisms will consume them incidentally. But researcher John DeLong at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln wanted to find out if any microbes actively ate viruses, and whether such a diet could support the physiological growth of individual organisms and the growth of a community.

Experiments showed that a microbe known as Halteria favoured eating a virus. Additional studies will look for more virovores.

https://newatlas.com/science/first-virovore-eats-viruses/

What do you think?

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Comments

IdeaSpies @ 2023.01.10 2:48 AM
Interesting that viruses are "made up of really good stuff: nucleic acids, a lot of nitrogen and phosphorous".

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