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ERV-Fc is an endogenous retrovirus (ERV), or a genus or family of them. It was active and infectious among many species of mammals, jumping species more than 20 times, between about 33 million and about 15 million years ago, in the Oligocene and early Miocene, in all areas of the world except for Australia or Antarctica. After about 15 million years ago, it became extinct as an active infectious virus, but inactive damaged copies and partial copies of its DNA survive as inclusions in the hereditary DNA of many species of mammals, including humans and other great apes. That has allowed the interspecies jump route of the spreading virus to be tracked, but with gaps where the trail was lost by passing through infected animals who left no extant descendants. These events can be timed by the molecular clock in their extant descendants.

References

1. Tracking interspecies transmission and long-term evolution of an ancient retrovirus using the genomes of modern mammals, by William E Diehl, Nirali Patel, Kate Halm, Welkin E Johnson. Boston College, United States. Areas: evolutionary biology, microbiology, infectious disease. Research Article Mar 8, 2016
2. The Pandemic That Lasted 15 Million Years; YouTube video, 10.06 minutes long, uploaded 28 January 2021, by PBS Eons
3. Scientists uncover history of ancient viruses as far back as 30 million years ago
4. Characterization of the low-copy HERV-Fc family: evidence for recent integrations in primates of elements with coding envelope genes, by Laurence Bénit, Alexandra Calteau, Thierry Heidmann. Virology, volume 312, issue 1, 20 July 2003, pages 159-168

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