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Nathan Myers

Are we sure that wasps didn't themselves invent nudiviruses, which then, eventually, broke loose and achieved a more or less independent existence?

If so, can we say the same about bacteriophages?

Merry replies:

You have touched on a longstanding and much debated question: which came first, the virus or the cell? But in this case, you are asking about the origin of one particular family of viruses, not all viruses. The nudiviruses are clearly evolutionarily related to the rest of the viral world, not an independent lineage created in the wasps.

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