Horizontal gene transfer is generally the transfer of functional genes between unrelated organisms, so it's a bit mis-leading to call the transfer of BovB horiz

Horizontal gene transfer is generally the transfer of functional genes between unrelated organisms, so it's a bit mis-leading to call the transfer of BovB horizontal gene transfer. BovB is a transposon, in essence a small piece of semi-autonomous DNA that jumps between DNA strands as a virus may transfer between cells. It isn't a "snake" gene. The article mentions that BovB possibly transferred between species using viruses as vectors. The article below [0] mentions that BovB is one of the most abundant transposons in mammals. [0] Horizontal transfer of BovB and L1 retrotransposons in eukaryotes https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29983116/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29983116/