The paper describing this new virus is now published and can be found at: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4425/10/3/194

This was the second of two papers we published in the Genes special issue,  Genetics of Halophilic Microorganisms. The story behind this paper is interesting. In 2007, there was an unexpected lysis event of a large culture of Halobacterium salinarum S9 that was being grown at the MPI for the production of bacteriorhodopsin. This caused a real mess. The culprit was a myovirus (pictured upper right) that not only looks similar to phiH1 and phiCh1 but is specifically related to them. As depicted in the above light-hearted graphic, not only was the culture lost but the room had to be thoroughly cleaned out. The most likely source of contamination was the raw salt used for medium formulation. In honour of the mess and disorder caused by this virus, we coined the name ChaoS9 for it (Caudovirus of haloarchaeal origin; S9).