''Pandoravirus salinus'' is a large virus of genus ''

Pandoravirus ''Pandoravirus'' is a genus of giant virus, first discovered in 2013. It is the second largest in physical size of any known viral genus. Pandoraviruses have double stranded DNA genomes, with the largest genome size (2.5 million base pairs) of ...

'', found in the marine sediment layer of the Tunquen River in

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

, and is one of the largest viruses identified, along with '' Pandoravirus dulcis''. It is 2.5 million

nucleobase Nucleobases, also known as ''nitrogenous bases'' or often simply ''bases'', are nitrogen-containing biological compounds that form nucleosides, which, in turn, are components of nucleotides, with all of these monomers constituting the basic b ...

s long, encodes for about 2,500 genes, and is visible through an

optical microscope The optical microscope, also referred to as a light microscope, is a type of microscope that commonly uses visible light and a system of lenses to generate magnified images of small objects. Optical microscopes are the oldest design of microsc ...

. It was first identified in 2013.

References

2013 in science Nucleocytoplasmic large DNA viruses Unaccepted virus taxa {{Virus-stub