How are viruses and bacteria different?

Bacteria and viruses aren't like most animals. They don't need to have sex or exchange genetic information with other organisms of the same type to reproduce. However, this is not to say that bacteria and viruses have the same reproductive strategies. Bacteria practice asexual reproduction. read more

Bacteria are intercellular organisms (i.e. they live in-between cells); whereas viruses are intracellular organisms (they infiltrate the host cell and live inside the cell). They change the host cell's genetic material from its normal function to producing the virus itself. read more

Viruses, for example, are as much as 10 to 100 times smaller than bacteria. Unlike viruses, which are frequently believed to be organic structures interacting with living organisms to survive and replicate, bacteria are actual living organisms that reproduce via a form of asexual reproduction called binary fission. read more