See also: “Microbe with bizarrely tiny genome may be evolving into a virus” – https://www.science.org/content/article/microbe-bizarrely-ti...

Maybe devolving would be a better term if that's the case

IAmBroom 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Which, BTW, is about the same researcher and microbial host/parasite pair. More info, so I'm not complaining.

	▲	flobosg 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yeah, I should have mentioned that. Article about the same topic and preprint, but released earlier this year.