- Volume 12, Issue 4, 1962

Caulobacter vibrioides is commonly found in tanks of distilled water. A detailed description is given of cultural, morphologyical and physiological characteristics. Attachment to other bacteria and to inanimate objects with rosette formation is described.

Names are proposed and descriptions given for five new species of bacteria isolated from stored distilled water from various laboratories. Corynebacterium aquaticum n. sp. has many of the characteristics of the motile plant pathogenic bacteria that have been placed in genus Corynebacterium. Other species named are Flavobacterium capsulatumn. n. sp., Spirillum delicatum n. s p., Pseudomonas Ianceolata n. sp., and Pseudomonas huttiensis n. sp. Cultures of the type strain of each new species have been deposited in the American Type Culture Collection.

The meaning of the term “feature” as applied to Adansonian taxonomy is reviewed and the difficulties of adequate definition pointed out. Features which are negative in each of two organisms compared require differentiation between negative results that represent absurdities and negative results that are rational. The meaning of absurdity and nonabsurdity in bacteriology is a function of the bacteriologist’s knowledge and experience. It is from the sensible, significant and practical features that random selection of features that may be thought necessary will be made.

For the benefit of workers without adequate access to an electronic computer, a relatively simpler approach to the problem of scoring similarities is outlined.

Salmonella cook was isolated from animal feed meal and is represented by the antigenic formula 39:z48:1, 5. The z48 antigen of phase 1 bears no demonstrable relationship to previously described H antigens of Enterobacteriaceae.

The authors propose to the Judicial Commission of the International Committee on Bacteriological Nomenclature that the strain deposited in the American Type Culture Collection as ATCC 8081 be designated as the neotype strain (culture) of Pediococcus cerevisiae Balcke.

Strain S-182 of the authors’ collection has been deposited by the authors as the type strain (type culture) of Pediococcus parvulus Günther and White in the National Collection of Dairy Organisms, National Institute for Research in Dairying, Shinfield, Nr. Reading, Berkshire, England.

The name Nocardia otiti dis caviar um (sic) Snijders 1 9 24 was proposed for an organism from the infected middle ears of guinea pigs in Sumatra. This name (the “Nocardia of otitis of guinea pigs”) is a correctly formed binary combination, is validly published and legitimate. Nomenclaturally junior synonyms have been employed in the four papers relative to this species, viz. Actinomyces caviae Erikson 1935, Nocardia caviae Erikson 1935 and Nocardia caviae Waksman and Henrici 1 948. Nocardia otitidiscaviarum Snijders 1 924 is the correct name.