Resolving the Orthoflavivirus encephalitidis Paraphyly by Species Splitting

Our communication summarizes the recent changes in the paraphyletic species Orthoflavivirus encephalitidis. The paraphyly arises due to louping-ill virus (LIV), which is genetically closer to the European subtype of tick-borne encephalitis virus (TBEV). To maintain a concept of monophyly, we have split Orthoflavivirus encephalitidis into two monophyletic species: Orthoflavivirus zilberi (after Lev A. Zilber—the head of the expedition that identified and characterized TBEV in the Soviet Far East in 1937) and Orthoflavivirus neudoerflense, named after Neudörfl, a town in Austria where the reference strain Neudoerfl was first isolated. Also, to remove the resulting ambiguity in the virus name “tick-borne encephalitis virus”, we have proposed new names—Asian TBEV (TBEV-AS) for Orthoflavivirus zilberi, and European TBEV (TBEV-EU) for Orthoflavivirus neudoerflense.