sp. nov., isolated from raw milk.

Two strains of a Gram-staining-positive species were isolated from German bulk tank milk. On the basis of their 16S rRNA sequences they were affiliated to the genus but could not be assigned to any species with a validly published name. ATCC BAA-466 (97.3 % 16S rRNA sequence similarity), CCUG 37842 (96.9 %), and CCUG 36813 (96.6 %) are the closest relatives. In the 16S rRNA phylogeny and in the core-genome phylogeny strains WS 5301 and WS 5302 form a well-supported, separate lineage. Pairwise average nucleotide identity calculated using MUMmer (ANIm) between WS 5301 and type strains of other species is well below the species cut-off (95 %) and ranges from 83.4 to 87.7 %. The DNA G+C content of the type strain is 36.4 mol% and the assembly size of the genome is 2.2 Mb. Cells of WS 5301 are non-motile, non-endospore-forming, oxidase-negative, catalase-negative and facultatively anaerobic cocci. The fastidious species grows at 10-40 °C and with up to 7.0 % (w/v) NaCl in BHI supplemented with 5 g l yeast extract. Major polar lipids are phosphatidylglycerol, diphosphatidylglycerol and two glycolipids. Predominant fatty acids are Cω9 and Cω9. On the basis of their genomic, physiological and chemotaxonomic characteristics the strains examined in this study represent the same, hitherto unknown species. We propose the name sp. nov. for which WS 5301 (=DSM 111018=LMG 31861) is the type strain and WS 5302 (=DSM 111019=LMG 31862) is an additional strain of this novel species.