See text Aspiviridae, formerly Ophioviridae, is a family of segmented negative-strand RNA viruses which infect plants.

Member viruses are characterized by an elongated and highly filamentous and flexible nucleocapsid with helical symmetry.

[3] The name Aspiviridae derives from the Latin aspis (snake or viper), referring to the shape, along with the suffix for a virus family -viridae.

[4] Ophiovirus derives from the Ancient Greek ophis, "snake", with –virus the suffix for a virus genus.

[4] Milneviricetes is in honor of Robert G. Milne, the last author on the first paper describing ophioviruses.