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Asked by scootabaus to Debbie, Glyn, Jon, Kat, Nicola on 11 Mar 2013.
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Nicola Fletcher answered on 11 Mar 2013:
Yes, I think all of the creatures in the sea can get viruses. There’s absolutely loads of viruses in the sea…millions and millions of viruses in just one teaspoon full of sea water! The biggest virus we know about, called megavirus, lives in the sea!
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Debbie Crockard answered on 11 Mar 2013:
Hi,
Yup just like any other animal sea creatures can get viruses, viruses in the sea can have huge impacts to species that we know well. Salmon which is farmed in the sea can get viruses which can really quickly spread in the salmon farm cages and then spread in to the wild population and can be devastating not just to wild populations but for the businesses that own the farms.
People are also worried that viruses like swine flu will be able to spread between birds and sea mammals – like whales – to test whales for viruses they take samples using toy helicopters to test the whale snot!
http://www.livescience.com/3058-helicopters-collect-whale-snot-blowholes.html
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Kathryn McMahon answered on 11 Mar 2013:
I don’t really know but I would imagine so – there are viruses for pretty much everything!
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Glyn Barrett answered on 11 Mar 2013:
I guess they get sea creature flu!
Viruses are amazing. There are viruses for every known biological organism! there are even viruses which affect bacteria, viruses which affect other viruses and even more amazing viruses which affect the viruses which affect the viruses! Now that just sounds silly but its really true. They are called virophages which means “virus eater”! Some have got real funky names like Sputnik!
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