A Gram-stain-negative, non-spore-forming, strictly aerobic, non-flagellated, non-gliding, rodshaped bacterial strain, designated SMS-12 T , was isolated from marine sand in a firth on the western coast of South Korea. Strain SMS-12 T grew optimally at 25 6C, at pH 7.0-7.5 and in the absence of NaCl. Phylogenetic trees based on 16S rRNA gene sequences revealed that strain SMS-12 T fell within the clade comprising species of the genus Mucilaginibacter, forming a coherent cluster with the type strain of Mucilaginibacter lappiensis, with which it exhibited the highest 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity value of 97.5 %. Levels of sequence similarity to the type strains of the other species of the genus Mucilaginibacter and the other species used in the phylogenetic analysis were 93.3-96.4 % and ,91.5 %, respectively. Strain SMS-12 T contained MK-7 as the predominant menaquinone, and summed feature 3 (C 16 : 1 v7c and/or iso-C 15 : 0 2-OH), iso-C 15 : 0 and iso-C 17 : 0 3-OH as the major fatty acids. The major polar lipids were phosphatidylethanolamine and one unidentified aminophospholipid; sphingolipids were present. The DNA G+C content was 41.8 mol% and the mean DNA-DNA relatedness with M. lappiensis KACC 14978 T was 13 %. Differential phenotypic properties, together with phylogenetic and genetic distinctiveness, revealed that strain SMS-12 T is separate from other species of the genus Mucilaginibacter. On the basis of the data presented, strain SMS-12 T is considered to represent a novel species of the genus Mucilaginibacter, for which the name Mucilaginibacter sabulilitoris sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is SMS-12 T (5KCTC 32111 T 5CCUG 62214 T ).The genus Mucilaginibacter, a member of the family Sphingobacteriaceae, phylum Bacteroidetes, was proposed by Pankratov et al. (2007) with the descriptions of two novel species, Mucilaginibacter paludis (type species) and Mucilaginibacter gracilis. Subsequently, the number of species of the genus Mucilaginibacter has increased considerably. At the time of writing, the genus Mucilaginibacter comprised 21 recognized species (Pankratov et al., 2007;Urai et al., 2008;An et al., 2009;Luo et al., 2009;Jeon et al., 2009;Baik et al., 2010;Madhaiyan et al., 2010; Männistö et al., 2010;Kim et al., 2010Kim et al., , 2011Kim et al., , 2012aJoung & Joh, 2011;Kang et al., 2011; Cui et al., 2011a, b;Han et al., 2012; Jiang et al., 2012;Yoon et al., 2012). Members of the genus Mucilaginibacter have been isolated from peat bog, soil, dried rice straw, wetland freshwater, tidal flats, marine sand, the rhizosphere of plants and compost (Pankratov et al., 2007;Urai et al., 2008;An et al., 2009;Baik et al., 2010;Madhaiyan et al., 2010;Kim et al., 2010Kim et al., , 2012a Cui et al., 2011a;Kang et al., 2011;Yoon et al., 2012). In this study, we describe a Mucilaginibacter-like bacterial strain, designated SMS-12 T , isolated from marine sand in a firth on the western coast of South Korea. The aim of the present work was to determine the exact taxonomic position of strain SMS-12 T by usi...