Subfamily: Bastillevirinae

Genus: Shalavirus

Distinguishing features

The genome of Bacillus phage Shbh1, the exemplar isolate of Shalavirus Shbh1, the only species in the genus, is 138 081 bp with 177 unique predicted protein coding sequences and no tRNAs. The original description (van Zyl et al., 2016) mentions long terminal repeats of 0.4–3.8 kbp as observed by the analysis of read coverage, but these are not annotated in the sequence record. The only known member of the genus (Bacillus phage Shbh1) infects unclassified environmental strains similar to Alkalihalobacillus halodurans (formerly known as Bacillus halodurans). There are some indications that the phage may also infect isolates resembling Alkalihalobacillus pseudofirmus.

Species demarcation criteria

There is only one species in the genus. New members of this species will be assigned based on their being more than 95% identical in genome nucleotide sequence, including the terminal repeat region. Phages with genomes that differ by more than 5% will be assigned to different species.