The correspondence by Mikalova et al.1 in this issue of Sexually Transmitted Diseases makes the important and very interesting observation that the genital lesion of a man diagnosed as having primary syphilis in Paris, France2, contained a Treponema strain that displays several molecular signatures that suggest infection not with Treponema pallidum subsp. pallidum as expected, but with T. pallidum subsp. pertenue, the causative agent of yaws.