(PhysOrg.com) -- 'Fossil viruses' preserved inside the DNA of
mammals and insects suggest that all viruses, including
relatives of HIV and Ebola, could potentially be stowaways
transmitted from generation to generation for millions of years,
according to new research. A team from Oxford University and the
Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center built on earlier work at
Oxford that discovered the fossilised remains of an ancient HIV-
like virus in the genomes of animals including sloths, lemurs
and rabbits. The teams new research, reported in this weeks PLoS
Genetics, shows that many more different types of viruses are
endogenous capable of being transmitted from generation to
generation with fossil viruses turning up in the genomes of
creatures as different as mosquitoes, wallabies, and humans.
Many of these viruses, such as the ancestors of Ebola, are far
more ancient and spread across many more animal groups than
anyone ever suspected, said Dr Aris Katzourakis of Oxford
Universitys Department of Zoology, an autho