Last year, Pepper, a pet cat who roams the backyards of Gainesville, Florida, helped a scientist discover a new viral strain. Now, the furry feline is back at it again.
In a new study, scientists have once again discovered an exotic virus infecting a dead rodent that had been caught by Pepper. This time around, Pepper’s furry hunting trophy helped researchers pinpoint an unidentified strain of orthoreovirus, a type of virus that infects humans and other mammals. The findings, and the virus’s complete genome, are published in the journal Microbiology Letters.
John Lednicky, Pepper’s owner and the lead author of the study, is a microbiologist at the University of Florida and hunts viruses much like Pepper hunts rodents. It was Lednicky who brought Pepper’s fresh catch into the lab for testing…