Wild Phages

My virology class isolated coliphages from various soil and fecal samples. Here are some pictures. We also looked in Atlantic Ocean and Massachusetts bay water for cyanophages that infect Synechococcus. Here are some pictures of the fancy-tailed phages that we found. One of the fun things about isolating wild phages is getting to name them. I noted the strange names that were chosen for the cyanophages.