ICTV/MSL: International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses / Master Species List in the Catalogue of Life

The International Union of Microbiological Societies (IUMS) has charged the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) with the task of developing, refining, and maintaining a universal virus taxonomy. The goal of this undertaking is to categorize the multitude of known virus into a single classification scheme that reflects their evolutionary relationships, i.e. their individual phylogenies.