Revised Taxonomy of Rhabdoviruses Infecting Fish and Marine Mammals

The is a large family of negative-sense (-) RNA viruses that includes important pathogens of ray-finned fish and marine mammals. As for all viruses, the taxonomic assignment of rhabdoviruses occurs through a process implemented by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV). A recent revision of taxonomy conducted in conjunction with the ICTV Study Group has resulted in the establishment of three new subfamilies ( , , and ) within the , as well as three new genera ( , , and ) and seven new species for viruses infecting fish or marine mammals. All rhabdovirus species have also now been named or renamed to comply with the binomial format adopted by the ICTV in 2021, comprising the genus name followed by a species epithet. Phylogenetic analyses of L protein (RNA-dependent RNA polymerase) sequences of (-) RNA viruses indicate that members of the genus (subfamily ) do not cluster within the , suggesting the need for a review of their current classification.