Bacterial strains YM16-303T and YM16-304T were isolated from a sample of seashore sand using a medium with an artificial seawater base. Both isolates grew slowly on marine agar, and were found to be Gram-reaction-positive, aerobic, non-motile and rod-shaped. The cell-wall peptidoglycan contained ll-diaminopimelic acid, glycine, alanine and hydroxyglutamic acid, and the acyl type of the muramic acid was glycolyl. The predominant menaquinone was MK-9(H8). The 16S rRNA gene sequences of strains YM16-303T and YM16-304T were most similar to that of
Ilumatobacter fluminis
YM22-133T, and phylogenetic analyses also indicated that they belong to the genus
Ilumatobacter
.
Ilumatobacter fluminis
YM22-133T and strains YM16-303T and YM16-304T should be classified as distinct species in the genus
Ilumatobacter
, however, since the 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity between them was low and the major cellular fatty acids and some physiological properties were different. Moreover, average nucleotide identity and maximal unique exact matches index values also supported the conclusion that they represent different species. On the basis of the above analyses, two novel species,
Ilumatobacter
nonamiense sp. nov. (type strain YM16-303T = NBRC 109120T = KCTC 29139T) and
Ilumatobacter
coccineum sp. nov. (type strain YM16-304T = NBRC 103263T = KCTC 29153T), are proposed. The order
Acidimicrobiales
, which contains the genus
Ilumatobacter
, currently includes six genera and only six species, and they are phylogenetically very far from each other. Phylogenetic analyses revealed that strains YM16-303T and YM16-304T clustered with closely related uncultured actinobacteria but not
Ilumatobacter fluminis
YM22-133T, suggesting that many uncultured bacteria related to these isolates exist in the environment. This is the first report on interspecies relationships in the order
Acidimicrobiales
.