Cat in Florida helps discover rare virus for second time
Pepper, a feline owned by John Lednicky, a virologist at the University of Florida, recently discovered orthoreovirus on a dead Everglades short-tailed shrew he had caught. Orthorevirus is a viral genus that's known to infect birds, mammals (including humans), white-tailed deer and bats.
'The bottom line is we need to pay attention to orthoreoviruses, and know how to rapidly detect them,' said Lednicky in a statement for the University of Florida Health. 'That's because there have been reported cases of them causing serious illness in humans.'
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Orthoreovirus effects on humans are not very specific, but there have been rare reports of the sickness being connected with cases of encephalitis, meningitis and gastroenteritis in children.
Lednicky and his fellow researchers acknowledged plans to continue studying orthoreovirus to understand if it can be a threat to humans and pets. The threat, though, had no effect on Pepper, who didn't show any signs of illness and is out conducting fieldwork once again.
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'This was an opportunistic study,' Lednicky added. 'If you come across a dead animal, why not test it instead of just burying it? There is a lot of information that can be gained.'
Pepper first shot to fame back in 2021 after discovering a microbe inside a dead rodent known as jeilongvirus.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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