A new virus, dubbed "the sunshine virus," has emerged as the probable cause of a disease outbreak in Australian snakes. From Phys.org:

The quest to identify the new virus started as an investigation of the cause of a 2008 disease outbreak in a privately owned Australian collection of 70 pythons. As more and more animals became sick, showing signs of pneumonia, depression, lethargy and abnormal behavior such as “star gazing” — staring up at things — they were all eventually euthanized. The researchers had great difficulty detecting the elusive virus and struggled to identify the category in which it belonged. “We screened more than 450 samples, including swabs, tissues and blood for snake viruses,” said lead author Timothy Hyndman, a lecturer and graduate student at Murdoch University in Australia. “It was very frustrating. After two and a half years, we finally isolated something. A year later, we figured out what it was.”

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“This virus was invisible to prior technologies,” said Eric Delwart, director of molecular virology at the Blood Systems Research Institute and an adjunct professor of laboratory medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, who was not involved in the study. “Besides providing assays to help track and control outbreaks of this new snake virus, the study highlights the enhanced ability of scientists to rapidly identify novel pathogens.”

While it is not totally conclusive that this was the outbreak in the private collection, all signs point towards that direction. To read the full article, click here.