Family: Herelleviridae

Subfamily: Spounavirinae

Distinguishing features

Members of this subfamily infect Bacillus sp. including B. cereus and B. subtilis. Virus genomes are of 132–146 kbp and have long terminal repeats (Okubo et al., 1972, Klumpp et al., 2010, Barylski et al., 2020).

Species demarcation criteria

Members of different Spounavirinae genera belong to different, well-supported monophyletic clades in genome-based phylogenies and in (concatenated) marker gene phylogenies. Members of the same genus share at least 60% nucleotide identity across the genome length. The genome organisation is conserved. Members of the same genus generally infect members of the same bacterial genus.