A novel orthohepadnavirus identified in a dead Maxwell’s duiker (Philantomba maxwellii)

New technologies increasingly enable viral discovery in a diversity of nonhuman hosts, providing insights into viral evolution. We used one such approach, the hybridization or capture based target enrichment for viral genomes sequencing platform of vertebrate viruses (VirCapSeq-VERT), on samples originating from dead Maxwell’s duikers (Philantomba maxwellii) from Taï National Park, Côte d’Ivoire. We detected the presence of a novel orthohepadnavirus in one of the duikers and characterized its 3,128 bp genome.