Fig 1. Interesting aspects of archaeal virology.

(A) Acidianus tailed spindle virus schematic (and TEM background image) illustrates the unique morphologies that can be found among archaeal viruses. (B) Archaeal viruses and their hosts have no known role in human pathogenesis. (C) Archaeal viruses have revealed novel virus-host interactions, including a novel pyramid-based lysis mechanism. (D) Archaeal viruses are common but not limited to extreme environments. (E) The evolutionary history of archaeal viruses involves two tracts, one unique to Archaea and one with relationships to eukaryotic and bacterial viruses. Image credits: Old Faithful by Nick Bluth from the Noun Project (D) and Evolutionary Tree by A Beale from the Noun Project (E).