The viruses circulating among Antarctic wildlife remain largely unknown. In an effort to
identify viruses associated with Weddell seals (Leptonychotes weddellii) inhabiting the Ross
Sea, vaginal and nasal swabs, and faecal samples were collected between November 2014
and February 2015. In addition, a Weddell seal kidney and South Polar skua (Stercorarius
maccormicki) faeces were opportunistically sampled. Using high throughput sequencing, we
identified and recovered 152 anellovirus genomes that share 63–70% genome-wide …