Found a 'New' Butterfly

New to me, at least.  For now, I'm about 99% sure it's a Variegated Fritillary (Euptoieta claudia), but I'll send the photos to www.butterfliesandmoths.org to be sure.

It was hanging out on a Verbena in a little bit of sunny that is up along the driveway to the house.  It tried the Butterfly Bush that the swallowtails have been all over lately, but came back to the Verbena.  It was quite tame, and allowed me to get very close for lots of pictures.  New screensaver material.

I like the last shot because it puts the size into scale.  The Eastern Tiger Swallowtail is the largest butterfly in the United States (although, being male, that one might be a little below average)... 

While I was out, I looked around and found this, which appeared to be the smallest butterfly I have ever seen.  I'm pretty sure it's a Eastern Tailed Blue (Cupido comyntus), which I've seen before, but never one this small. Compare to the grass blades for scale.

Federal Policy Kills Birds

Barred Owls (source)

This article from my old stomping (literally) ground in Southern Oregon: 

Feds plan to shoot barred owls 

GRANTS PASS, Ore. — Federal wildlife officials plan to dispatch hunters into forests of the Pacific Northwest starting this fall to shoot one species of owl to protect another that is threatened with extinction.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Tuesday released a final environmental review of an experiment to see if killing barred owls will allow northern spotted owls to reclaim territory they've been driven out of over the past half-century. The agency has been evaluating the idea since 2009, gathering public comment and consulting ethicists, focus groups and scientific studies. It will issue a final decision on the plan in a month.

"If we don't manage barred owls, the probability of recovering the spotted owl goes down significantly," said Paul Henson, Oregon state supervisor for Fish and Wildlife.

The agency's preferred course of action calls for killing 3,603 barred owls in four study areas in Oregon, Washington and Northern California over the next four years. The plan is expected to cost about $3 million and requires a special permit under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which prohibits killing nongame birds.

I wrote about this plan in 2011. My opinions haven't changed.

And in other dead bird news, the Federal government continues to tolerate high bird losses, particularly the loss of large and charismatic bird to wind power generators, that they would not tolerate for less prosaic power producers:

A new study found that the federal government underestimated the number of birds that die colliding with wind turbines across the country.

In fact, bird deaths were found to be 30 percent higher than previous estimates given by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2009.

“I estimated 888,000 bat and 573,000 bird fatalities/year (including 83,000 raptor fatalities) at 51,630 megawatt (MW) of installed wind-energy capacity in the United States in 2012,” writes K. Shawn Smallwood, author of the study that was published in the Wildlife Society Bulletin.
...
“Despite numerous violations, the Obama administration — like the Bush administration before it — has unofficially exempted the wind industry from prosecution under the Eagle Protection and Migratory Bird Treaty Acts,” wrote the Manhattan Institute’s Robert Bryce. “By exempting the wind industry from prosecution under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act or the Eagle Protection Act, the federal government is providing another indirect subsidy to the sector.”
...
In 2009, ExxonMobil pleaded guilty in federal court to charges of killing 85 federally protected birds and agreed to pay $600,000 in fines and fees. That same year, Oregon-based PacifiCorp was also fined $1.4 million for the killing of 232 eagles in Wyoming, which were electrocuted by the company’s power lines.

“What it boils down to is this: If you electrocute an eagle, that is bad, but if you chop it to pieces, that is OK,” said Tim Eicher, a former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agent who helped prosecute the PacifiCorp.

Your Wednesday Morning Eye Opener

I think that's a Great White Shark's tooth right there. Nice Specimen!

Also linked at The Other McCain in Wombat-Socho's weekly Rule 5 bonanza "Rule 5 Monday."

Monkeys Mob Moron

Monkeying With Biden’s Security

Mr. Biden started a four-day visit to India Monday with a trip to the Gandhi Smriti, a memorial to the leader of India’s freedom movement at the site where he was assassinated in New Delhi in 1948.

In what could be described as bad timing, about a dozen adult monkeys–some with babies in tow– took a fancy to thick clusters of raw mangoes hanging on a tree above a tall statue of Gandhi, just before the American dignitary was due to reach the spot on his carefully choreographed walkabout of the site.
...
As Mr. Biden and his wife walked towards the statue, and the monkey filled mango tree, Monday evening, photographers trained their cameras on the couple with a glint of anticipation. But no fruit fell from the tree as the U.S. vice president posed for a few seconds in front of the statue. Perhaps his security team had that covered too.

Professional courtesy.

Anthony Weiner is a Totally Shameless Dickhead

The big news of the day.

Althouse has the definitive comment:

They're a power couple, yoked for power. Of course, they move forward. It's not that complicated. I don't even believe they indulged in "a whole lot of therapy."

UPDATE:  Apparently he was done in by an Obama operative.  That's almost enough to make me feel sorry for him, but not quite...

Just Ducky at the Beach

Another partly (to mostly) cloudy day here in Slower Maryland, with temperatures flirting in the 80s, and the humiture in vicinity of "gooey." We left Skye behind today, for some extra rest.

Mother Mallard keeps an eye on use as we pass by her passel of youngsters, gleaning whatever they can off the rocks of one of the old groins.

Georgia look for shark's teeth, while ignoring the Great Blue Heron a few yards ahead.  He took off before she tripped over him.

A perfect bench for a short rest.  Use it while you can because a storm will change the seating arrangements soon enough.

A new butterfly for the year; my first decent look at a Red Spotted Purple, one of the other 'black and blue' butterflies around here that supposedly benefit from mimicking the Pipevine Swallowtail, who must taste pretty awful to be for mimicry of them to be effective when there seem to be none around.

Not the best photos; it wasn't very cooperative, but with enough detail to make sure of the identification.

This Spicebush Swallowtail, on the other hand, was very friendly.

IRS: Sure, We're All Democrats and We Hate Republicans, But We Don't Let That Affect Our Decisions, Pinkie Swear!

A letter from an IRS underling who admits that the vast majority of IRS lawyers are democrats who oppose the republicans because of their support for smaller government, but swear it doesn't affect their decisions...

Professor Anderson,

As an attorney who works for the IRS, I read with interest your post in the Tax Prof blog concerning political contributions by federal government attorneys. You express the view that the fact that the vast majority of contributions by federal government attorneys are to Democrats reflects a "lack (of) political diversity necessary to represent the American people" and a "dysfunctional culture in federal agencies," that "should make everyone uneasy." Quite frankly, I believe your post reflects a political bias on your part, and your confusing cause and effect.

Let us consider the fact that the Republican Party in recent years has adopted as a mantra that government is bad, and government regulation is bad. Thus, attorneys who hold those views will probably not seek employment in government. Government service will attract people who believe government service is worthwhile, and view government regulation positively. Is it any wonder that government attorneys are far more likely to contribute to Democrats than Republicans?

Moreover, the Republican Party has promoted the idea that government employees are bad. Especially over the past 5 years, the Republican Party has waged a nonstop campaign against government employees at all levels of government, arguing that we are lazy, overpaid, etc., etc., etc. There has not been a pay raise for federal employees for 3 years, and if the Republicans have their way, there won't be for at least another 3. In my agency, we are facing hiring freezes and major cuts in the resources we need to do our job. (And we are the agency that brings in government revenue!) The Republican House is pushing for a 25% cut in the IRS budget, to punish us for various trumped up offenses. Why are you surprised that government attorneys have a hostile view of the Republican Party and its agenda?

On a personal level, I can say that I have worked with many of the same attorneys for the past [redacted] years. During that time, the political views of a number of my colleagues have shifted from the Republicans to the Democrats. It is because they are sick of the attacks by the Republican Party, and an utter lack of respect for the hard work that we do.

I would note that partisan politics never figures into the work we do. We are simply committed to enforcing the tax laws as best we can. And many of us, regardless of political persuasion, would agree that Don Korb, a Bush appointee, was one of the best Chief Counsels we have ever had.

So if there is a lack of political diversity among federal government attorneys, it can be attributed almost entirely to the Republican Party agenda. That agenda makes me, and other federal government attorneys, very uneasy.

Sincerely,

I repeat my plan.  Fire half the IRS staff and replace them with explicitly chosen republican operators, and give them free rein to act as they see fit.  Call it "Affirmative Action."

She Just Can't Take a Compliment

Why women are terrible at accepting compliments

Renee Engeln, a psychology professor at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., says it has to do with the mixed messages women receive about what behaviors are desirable or acceptable.

“[We’re told] love yourself, but not too much. Be confident, but practice a style of humility this culture never requires of men. Believe in yourself, but never admit it out loud, lest you make another woman who doesn’t feel good about herself feel bad,” she says. “If you’re raised to think it’s arrogant to ever say something positive about yourself, it makes it hard to accept a compliment.”

As for the self-loathing one-upsmanship, she says that has more to do with trying to convince others we’re better at humility.

“We’re convincing them that we win at the game of crushing our own self-confidence,” she says. “I don’t think that’s a win, though.”

 Also linked at The Other McCain in Wombat-Socho's weekly Rule 5 bonanza "Rule 5 Monday."

How Much of What You Know Is Wrong?

Found at Maggie's Farm.

I did pretty good...

Darn Wanna Be Cop...

George Zimmerman Emerged From Hiding for Truck Crash Rescue

George Zimmerman, who has been in hiding since he was acquitted of murder in the death of Trayvon Martin, emerged to help rescue a family who was trapped in an overturned vehicle, police said today.

Zimmerman was one of two men who came to the aid of a family of four -- two parents and two children -- trapped inside a blue Ford Explorer SUV that had rolled over after traveling off the highway in Sanford, Fla. at approximately 5:45 p.m. Thursday, the Seminole County Sheriff's Office said in a statement.

The crash occurred at the intersection of I-4 and route Route 46, police said. The crash site is less than a mile from where Zimmerman shot Martin.

By the time police arrived, two people - including Zimmerman - had already helped the family get out of the overturned car, the sheriff's office said. No one was reported to be injured.

Zimmerman was not a witness to the crash and left after speaking with the deputy, police said.

You would think if anyone would know the dangers of trying to do something good for the community, it would be George Zimmerman.  He must be a slow learner. 

Give an Eagle a Fish...

...and feed him for a day.  Teach it to hunt, and it will make the Ospreys nervous forever.


When we arrived at the beach this morning, we immediately saw these two Bald Eagles, one siting on the channel marker, and the other on the South Jetty.  The one on the maker had a white head and tail, marking it as adult, and the one on the jetty had a juvenile's dark head and tail.

The juvenile was calling to the adult; I presume it was hungry and wanted food and was hoping for Mom (or Dad?) to get out and steal a fish for it.  The adult was not in a hurry to go anywhere; maybe it's time for Jr. to go off and learn to bushwhack his own Ospreys, or failing that, even catch a fish on his or her own.

The adult seemed to understand that being across the channel from it, I was no threat, and allowed me to get right across from it.  The youngster, however, got nervous, and took off.  What big wings!

Otherwise, a pretty good day.  A "cold" front (really rather tepid) came through last evening with some rumbles of thunder, and a pittance of rain, and cooled our weather off a few degrees. However, it's starting to heat up again already.

Is Maryland Drowning?

in bullshit? WAPO has another scare story on potential sea level rise. I would like the opportunity to place this in some context.

Vulnerable Maryland weighs threat of sea-level rise

It was scary enough that a team of experts on sea-level rise projected that Maryland’s coastal waters could rise to six feet in this century. But to hammer home the findings of a new report, they included a link to a Web tool that allows readers to make like a god, sliding a scale over pictures of state landmarks until a creeping tide washes them away.

Maryland, with 3,100 miles of tidal shore along the Atlantic Ocean and Chesapeake Bay, is one of several states, including Virginia, Delaware, Louisiana and Florida, most vulnerable to sea-level rise pushed in part by global warming that has caused glaciers to melt and oceans to expand.

Like the of the world, Maryland is experiencing a sea level rise of roughly 2 mm per year, plus an additional 1-2 mm/yr due to subsidence of the land.

This has been approximately true since the great rising of the seas at end of the most recent ice retreat from the last great glaciation:
 

At 3 mm per year, the projected sea level rise for Maryland (using the Baltimore figure above) is about 12 inches, or 1 foot per year.  Any more than that requires a "new" source for rising sea levels.  This, of course, is invoked using "global warming."

Coastal sea-level rise for Maryland will range from slightly less than a foot to more than two feet by mid-century, and from two to six feet by the end of the century, depending on numerous factors, including glacial ice melt, according to the projections in a recent report from the Maryland Commission on Climate Change.

We do see that their predictions include the "no change" scenario, although they downplay it mightily.  However, the predictions they like to feature are the extreme increases of 2 to 6 times the current rate of sea level rise.  Unfortunately for the hypothesis, global warming has been in hiatus for 12-18 years, depending on which data set you choose, and how loose your criteria for warming are:

They helpfully provide this graphic showing the relative "vulnerability" of Maryland land to sea level rise:

You will note that the vast majority of the threatened land is on Maryland's Eastern shore.  If you knew the region, you would be aware that most of land in blue is salt marsh.  Allow me to show my own photo of one of those islands in blue, near high tide:

South Marsh Island, Maryland

On an extreme high tide (probably at least twice a month, on the full and new moons) that marsh gets covered by the Bay.  The marsh itself grows to match sea level rise, and has for a very long time, since the sea level rose to meet that land it at the end of the ice age.  It rises by the accretion of dead grass, mixed with sediment caught by the detritus, forming a sod or eventually, peat.  Interestingly enough, the increase in CO2 may help some salt marshes to grow faster and resist the rise of sea level.


The major threat to salt marshes is not sea level rise, but rather erosion from the edge.  You can see the steep edges where waves have broken off chunks of the sod.

The way that this land can threatened by sea level rise is anything that destroys the ability of the marsh to regenerate itself.  Building roads and houses is one.  Any such fixed structure will be eventually overwhelmed, assuming sea level rise does not cease as we plunge into another era of ice advance. Or if, as is common, fires are set to clear the marsh, sufficient grass is not left to form the sod.  Or, an invasive species (in Maryland's case, the nutria) can eat enough to keep the marsh from renewing itself.

Yes, human habitation on the Eastern Shore is threatened by the Bay, but new sea level rise beyond what we've experienced over the past 400 years is not really the issue.  The shore will continue to erode, and land taken out of marsh will be swallowed.  It has happened before, and it will continue. People will adapt or leave.  For two models of adaption, consider Venice, Italy, and Manhattan Island, New York.

Venice was built on such islands over a thousand year ago.  No trace of the original islands is visible in Venice proper; they have all been covered with buildings built on pilings in the mud, including the great Cathedral of St. Marks.  Sea level rise now threatens those buildings, because the islands can't grow up any longer.  The only choice is to build higher.

Manhattan Island has been an important city for the colonies and the United States for 400 years.  How has it fared in the rising seas?

Answer; it has grown.  Not by salt marsh, but by human intervention.  The land was so valuable that people chose to make more of it.  I doubt they even considered the rising sea levels when they added land.  They just knew they wanted more of it.

Personally, I think the town on the Eastern Shore should consider the Venice model, but it's not mine to decide for them, it's theirs.

Football Player Arrested for Barking...

July 21 booking photo

...at police dog...

Florida starting linebacker Antonio Morrison has been suspended from the team after his second arrest in barely more than a month.

Gainesville Police say Morrison approached an officer's vehicle at the scene of a disturbance early Sunday morning and began barking at a police dog.

Morrison, 19, was arrested and charged with "interfering with police by harassing a police animal" and resisting arrest without violence after allegedly initially refusing to cooperate with officers' attempts to detain him. Both charges are misdemeanors.

June 16 booking photo

...and aggravating serial stupidity.

Morrison was also arrested June 16 after allegedly punching a bouncer at a Gainesville nightclub. Though Florida coach Will Muschamp said at SEC media days he had not yet decided on a punishment for Morrison related to that incident, he announced Sunday he has suspended the rising sophomore in the wake of his latest arrest.

"I'm extremely disappointed in Antonio Morrison's decision making," Muschamp said in a statement released by Florida. "He has been suspended from the team and will miss at least two games to begin the season."

 At least he cut off the dreads.

Midnite Music: Angel and Sugaree

Also linked at The Other McCain in Wombat-Socho's weekly Rule 5 bonanza "Rule 5 Monday."

To Not Speak Ill of the Dead...

can be a tough job, but Stacy McCain manages, by avoiding her name:

An Entirely Random Observation About Etiquette and Dead Jew-Haters

There are occasions when good taste requires that polite people say absolutely nothing about the latest news. Just in case such an occasion should ever occur (he says, in an entirely random and coincidental way), you should be prepared. It is important never to say the name of the recently deceased Jew-hating liberal hag, because that would not be polite. So I must sharply admonish Jeff Dunetz, who seems to have forgotten the requirements of decorum and propriety, and who also posted this memorably tasteless video:

I'm sure some liberal friends would be aghast at my jumping on the MSM bandwagon and singing her praises to high heaven, but then I remember how most of them reacted to the death of Andrew Breitbart. For example...

So Andrew Breitbart is dead. Here’s what I have to say to that, and I’m sure Breitbart himself would have respected this reaction: Good! Fuck him. I couldn’t be happier that he’s dead.

I say this in the nicest possible way. I actually kind of liked Andrew Breitbart. Not in the sense that I would ever have wanted to hang out with him, or even be caught within a hundred yards of him without a Haz-Mat suit on, but I respected the shamelessness. Breitbart didn’t do anything by halves, and even his most ardent detractors had to admit that he had a highly developed, if not always funny, sense of humor.

I will not unilaterally disarm. 

A Pack of Wolves, a Pod of Whales, a Murder of Crows...

...and a Clusterfuck of Sea Nettles.

Actually, the term for jelly fish is supposed to be smack or brood.  But I think mine is better.

Chance of Sea Nettles still 100%.

A little cooler, and still muggy and the air is almost still.

We took Skye down again after 3 days off.  She was anxious to go, but bogged down again about half way back. 

A sailboat eclipses James Island in the heat shimmer.

Watch Out for 'George Brotherman'

Smitty at the Other McCain posts this outstanding video

Is There A ‘George Brotherman’, A ‘Chocolate Klansman’?

What an excellent essay. I could not have said it better myself, both in terms of content quality, and I would be nailed to the wall as a three-alarm raaaaacist for laying the truth down like this:

And this essay by Walter Olson shows how the efforts to lower the standards for conviction and repeal "stand your ground" laws in the wake of the Zimmerman trial may actually not benefit Negros Blacks African Americans:

People upset at George Zimmerman's acquittal are calling for awarding various new powers to prosecutors at the expense of protections for criminal defendants.

Maybe this would make it easier to hang a rap on some future Zimmerman. But it also would have an effect that its backers probably don't intend: increasing the number of persons convicted and sent to prison. As part of that effect, more young black men -- as well as more members of other groups -- will end up behind bars
...
A key constituency seeking to roll back stand your ground in the Florida legislature is prosecutors, whose interests just might not be fully congruent with those of the people they prosecute.

Although critics insist that stand your ground leads to racially disparate effects, the Tampa Bay Times, a paper that has been highly critical of the law, concedes its in-depth investigation "found no obvious bias in how black defendants have been treated" under the law.

It also quoted Alfreda Coward, a black Fort Lauderdale lawyer "whose clients are mostly black men," as saying it had sometimes worked to the advantage of her clients facing charges over altercations. "Let's be clear," Coward told the paper, "this law was not designed for the protection of young black males, but it's benefiting them in certain cases."

Roll Your Own Passports, for Personal Use Only

A provision in the Immigration bill would decriminalize the forging of small numbers of US Passports

...In a separate little-noticed section of the legislation, senators propose to rewrite the laws against counterfeiting passports and the materials used to obtain them. Those new laws would set a legal threshold of 10 phony passports before a fraudster could be prosecuted for buying, selling or using counterfeit materials used to produce such fake documents
...
In addition to language allowing counterfeiters to escape prosecution if their phony materials impacted fewer than ten illegal passports, other language in the Senate bill addresses those who actually produce the finished forgeries.

A 20 year jail sentence is a possibility, but only for a criminal who 'produces, issues, or transfers ... forges, counterfeits, alters, or falsely makes ... [or] secures, possesses, uses, receives, buys, sells, or distributes 3 or more [fake] passports.' Current federal law prescribes up to 25 years in federal prison for unauthorized persons who produce or issue 'any passport' - meaning a single one. But under the Senate proposal, 'three such instances are forbidden, meaning two would be permitted,' the Investor's Business Daily story concluded.

Other bugs "features" of the legislation include:

$270 million in "slush" funds for liberal groups, including "La Raza" (The Race) to help immigrants obtain benefits and allowing  illegal immigrants with two DUI convictions to continue on the path to legalization.

I'm shocked, shocked that Republicans would oppose such provisions.

Scientists Go to War Over War

Is war inevitable? Debate rages among anthropologists

War is not an inevitable feature of society, according to two scientists who analyzed acts of aggression in 21 hunter-gatherer societies.

Among people who live today most like our ancestors did long ago, most acts of murder occur as a result of individual conflicts rather than as part of major battle-style events, the researchers report in the journal Science. That would suggests that war is an artifice of society, and not an intrinsic feature of human nature.

It’s a hopeful message, but one that has met with strong criticisms from a community of anthropologists who have long debated whether warfare has an extensive evolutionary history with roots embedded in the structure of our brains, or whether war is a response to more recent developments in how societies are structured...

My problem with that hypothesis is that people are a social species, and even though most acts of violence are likely to be personal and person to person, the same factors that drive people into conflict will also, perhaps more rarely, drive adjacent groups of people into conflict.

Other experts disagree, pointing out the complexities of defining what “war” is and the ambiguity of interpreting what archaeological discoveries say about how ancient people died, among other problems.

"The evidence doesn't really support the claim they're making," said Michael Wilson, an anthropologist at the University of Minnesota. "It's a hard question to study. If you look at the archaeological record, there's evidence of violence going back pretty far. But if you find a spearhead or arrowhead in someone's bones, which is common, is that war or an interpersonal dispute? You just don’t know."

Before the "industrialization" of war, I suspect most that most skirmishes resulted in only a few casualties, more wounds than instant death and rarely mass graves, filled with bodies with obvious signs of warfare.

“I think that people like Douglas Fry who are making a big effort trying to say that warfare does not have a deep evolutionary history think the answer needs to be that warfare is not a part of human nature, and therefore we don’t have to have warfare,” Wilson said, adding that the new paper falls in line with arguments that Fry has made in the past.

“I think that’s misguided. It’s clear that warfare occurs very commonly wherever there are people, but it doesn’t always occur. If we can find why people are less likely to go to war in some instances, then we’ll be doing something useful. I think it’s a very optimistic way of going forward.”

There's a real problem with science, particularly biological, and behavioral scientists, with presuming the answer, and then seeking to show that it is true. Although it sound a lot like the hypothesis in the  "scientific" method,  in biology and behavior the rules are not the same a the "natural laws" of physics, being much more malleable. The answer is not usually either one or another rule, but a conditional blending.
 
Also linked at The Other McCain in Wombat-Socho's weekly Rule 5 bonanza "Rule 5 Monday."

Giant Virus Found in Sea

Just like something out of Pacific Rim... which I just may see someday.

Scientists have found a new virus thought to be the biggest ever seen on Earth.

The virus, dubbed Pandoravirus, is one micrometre big - up to ten times the size of other viruses - and only six per cent of its genes resemble anything seen on Earth before.

This has led French researchers to believe the virus may have come from an ancient time or even another planet, such as Mars.The giant virus is only found underwater and is not thought to pose a serious risk to humans.

I find it highly improbable that these viruses originated on Mars.  If they had originated and evolved entirely separately, it would be virtually impossible for a virus to capture and co-opt the cellular machinery of an terrestrial organism, like other viruses do.  Speaking of which, how do these viruses get by?

They took the samples to their laboratory and put them in a solution packed with antibiotics in an attempt to kill any bacteria present.


These bacteria-free samples were then exposed to amoebas knowing that if they died, there must be something else in the samples killing them. This proved to be successful and large amounts of Pandoravirus were spawned.

They infect amoebas.  I don't see why that would make them be especially big, but there may be a good reason.  My guess is that these represent a fairly old and primitive branch of viruses, something half way between a bacterium and a virus.  It's difficult to see how viruses evolved, and three hypothesis have been advanced:

Regressive hypothesis

Viruses may have once been small cells that parasitized larger cells. Over time, genes not required by their parasitism were lost. The bacteria rickettsia and chlamydia are living cells that, like viruses, can reproduce only inside host cells.

Cellular origin hypothesis

Some viruses may have evolved from bits of DNA or RNA that "escaped" from the genes of a larger organism. The escaped DNA could have come from plasmids (pieces of naked DNA that can move between cells) or transposons (molecules of DNA that replicate and move around to different positions within the genes of the cell)

Coevolution hypothesis

This is also called the virus-first hypothesis and proposes that viruses may have evolved from complex molecules of protein and nucleic acid at the same time as cells first appeared on Earth and would have been dependent on cellular life for billions of years. 

I can imagine the large viruses originating from infections cells, and not having lost so much as to become like the smaller, more simple viruses.  Perhaps it has to do with the nature of the environment they "live" in, or the type of organisms they infect.

Anyway, it's a neat finding.