“Mamonoviridae”, a proposed new family of the phylum Nucleocytoviricota

Abstract

Acanthamoeba castellanii medusavirus J1 is a giant virus that was isolated from a hot spring in Japan in 2019. Recently, a close relative of this virus, named medusavirus stheno T3, was isolated in Japan. Here, we describe their morphological, genomic, and gene content similarities and also propose to create a new family, “Mamonoviridae”, a new genus, “Medusavirus”, and two species, “Medusavirus medusae” and “Medusavirus sthenus”, to classify these two viruses within the phylum Nucleocytoviricota.