i. it is double-stranded DNA; ii. it has a relatively low mutation rate, more like bacteria than like the RNA or shorter DNA viruses that have higher mutation rates and thus higher levels of variation; iii. it is very long for a virus, albeit shorter than a bacterial genome; iv. we have access to many genomes, which were sequenced by our collaborators at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, GA; v. there are finished genomes available, so we can compare actual finished data with simulated draft data. Only recently have a fairly large number of Bacillus anthracis genomes become available to us. However, since only some of these are finished, currently we cannot compare finished with draft results for this bacterial genome.