The mimivirus turned out to have virus genes—and a lot of them. Before the discovery of mimiviruses, scientists had become accustomed to finding only a few genes in a virus. But mimiviruses have 1,018 genes. It was as if someone took the genomes of the flu, the cold, smallpox, and a hundred other viruses, and stuffed them all inside one protein shell. The mimivirus even had more genes than some species of bacteria. In both its size and its genes, mimivirus had broken cardinal rules for being a virus.
