4 things we learn from studying the discovery of the Mimivirus:

1. We are still quite far from having perfected our models of evolutionary biology and
classification of organisms. New discoveries, such as this one, can potentially overthrow
prevailing concepts and give rise to new thoughts and considerations. t gives us the
incentive to !eep loo!ing to ma!e new discoveries that in the short"term may create a
turmoil regarding our understanding of organisms, but in the long term, can only
improve our understanding of nature itself, and its evolutionary methods.
#. $erhaps divisions between organisms in the %ree of &ife are ultimately arbitrary.
'upporting this idea is the nature of the Mimivirus" how it borrows characteristics from
both (iruses and )acteria, but still seems distinct enough to merit a independent
grouping. t loo!s li!e a virus, but is too large for our conventional viruses* it+s not a
bacterium, but is even more genetically advanced than some of them* it isn+t supposed
to be living, but can play host to virophages which cannot function without their
association. %his discovery seems to demand a different, perhaps an unconventional
approach to studying and classifying organisms, one which is accomodative of how the
characteristics of organisms are spread across a large spectrum, with no defining limits
of what one organism functionally is or isn+t.
,. We have to allow for e-ceptions to every rule because we ma!e the rules, and they
can+t always be perfect given how far we still are from having a comprehensive grasp on
the character of all biological organisms and how they have evolved through time. n the
long term, though, we could aim for a more perfect set of rules based on a superior
understanding of nature by means of persistent investigation, e-amination and
e-perimentation.
4. When one has discovered an unidentified organism, it is incumbent that the organism
is sub.ected to every single test or e-amination in the boo! to ma!e sure what type it is,
so it can be classified correctly. t would be a good practice for international scientific
research organisations to set down the rubric for important procedures that should be
conducted before a biological entity is declared to belong to a certain class or biological
family. /ad such guidelines been present previously, scientists would not have made the
mista!e they did in 100# and we would have had a decade longer to wor! on the
mimiviridae family. 1s it turned out, it too! until #22, for the mista!e to be rectified, which
is a precious lot of time wasted.