After his hunting skills helped virologists identify the first jeilongvirus in the United States, the virus-hunting feline has detected a new strain orthoreovirus. It helps that Pepper’s owner is John Lednicky, a virologist at the University of Florida College of Public Health. Pepper caught an Everglades short-tailed shrew and Lednicky took the small mole-lake mammal into the lab for testing. Lednicky’s research includes studying the mule deerpox virus, so he wanted to look at the shrew specimen for any clues to how this virus is transmitted among mammals. “I’m not the first one to say this, but essentially, if you look, you’ll find, and that’s why we keep finding all these new viruses,” Lednicky said.