A mysterious new virus of completely unknown origin has emerged from a lake in Brazil leaving scientists puzzled.
It has been named Yaravirus after Yara, a supernatural mermaid who lured soldiers underwater to live with her.
Researchers found over 90 per cent of Yaravirus genes have never been seen before, making it ‘mysterious’ and wholly unique.
The discovery comes amid the outbreak of a killer novel virus across the world which started in China.
COVID-19 coronavirus was first discovered in December 2019, and since, has killed more than 1,000 people and infected over 44,500.
Yaravirus was documented by scientists in January after they unexpectedly came across it at Lake Pampulha, an artificial lake in the Brazilian city of Belo Horizonte.
They sequenced the virus genome to look at its DNA, finding 74 genes in total. Only six of those had been recorded in literature before.
The other 68 have never been seen before, known as orphan genes.
A search of over 8,500 genetic material from across the globe in a scientific database offered no clues as to what Yaravirus might be closely related to.
