Virivorous

It is thus tempting to believe that virivorous organisms, like bacterivorous ones, should be able to optimize their food uptake by exploiting patches of high prey abundances.

Source: wiktionary

The salt-forced extinction of potential virivorous nanoflagellates is a possible explanation, but the ability of these viruses to better resist ambient UV radiations is not unrealistic either.

Source: wiktionary

Finally, the higher increase of VA in comparison to HBA in hypersaline systems was probably related to a higher resistance of halophages to environmental virucidal agents and, to a lesser extent, due to a lack of virivorous nanoflagellates or ciliates.

Source: wiktionary

If the researchers could prove that the microbes were growing by eating chlorovirus, they would have compelling evidence that these protists can sustain themselves with a virivorous lifestyle.

Source: wiktionary