Subfamily: Twortvirinae

Genus: Silviavirus

Distinguishing features 

Genomes of known members fall in the range of 130–140 kbp. The genome of Staphylococcus phage vB_SauM_Remus, the exemplar isolate of the representative species Silviavirus remus is 134 643 bp with a total of 174 protein coding sequences and 1 tRNA. Terminal repeats of 5–9 kbp have been described for some of these viruses (Sáez Moreno et al., 2021). Members of the genus infect Staphylococcus sp. mainly S. aureus.

Species demarcation criteria

Members of the same species are more than 95% identical in genome nucleotide sequence, including the terminal repeat region. Phages with genomes that differ by more than 5% are assigned to different species.