A halophilic archaeal strain, YC93 T , was isolated from Yuncheng salt lake in Shanxi Province, China. Cells were pleomorphic rods, stained Gram-negative and formed light-red-pigmented colonies on agar plates. Strain YC93 T was able to grow at 25-50 8C (optimum 37 8C), with 1.4-4.8 M NaCl (optimum 2.0 M), with 0-1.0 M MgCl 2 (optimum 0.05 M) and at pH 6.0-9.5 (optimum pH 7.0). Cells lysed in distilled water and the minimal NaCl concentration to prevent cell lysis was 8 % (w/v). 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis revealed that strain YC93 T had two dissimilar 16S rRNA genes both of which were phylogenetically related to those of the two recognized members of the genus Halorussus (93.0-95.3 % similarity). The rpoB9 gene of strain YC93 T was phylogenetically related to the corresponding gene of Halorussus rarus TBN4 T (91.3 % similarity) and Halorussus ruber YC25 T (90.5 %). The major polar lipids were phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol phosphate methyl ester, phosphatidylglycerol sulfate and five glycolipids chromatographically identical to those of Halorussus rarus CGMCC 1.10122 T . The DNA G+C content of strain YC93 T was 64.6 mol%. The phenotypic, chemotaxonomic and phylogenetic properties suggested that strain YC93 T represents a novel species of the genus Halorussus, for which the name Halorussus amylolyticus sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is YC93 T (5CGMCC 1.12126 T 5JCM 18367 T ).Halophilic archaea, members of the class Halobacteria, are the dominant microflora found in diverse hypersaline environments such as salt lakes and marine solar salterns (Youssef et al., 2012;Boujelben et al., 2014). In recent years, increasing numbers of remarkable isolates representing novel taxa of the class Halobacteria have been cultivated and described (Cui et al., 2010(Cui et al., , 2011Makhdoumi-Kakhki et al., 2012;Liu et al., 2015). This rapid expansion in new taxa indicates that members of the class Halobacteria are more diverse than was previously recognized. At the time of writing, the class Halobacteria contains a single order, Halobacteriales, containing a single family, Halobacteriaceae (Oren, 2014). The family Halobacteriaceae encompasses 50 genera containing over 195 species (Oren, 2012(Oren, , 2014Han et al., 2014;Liu et al., 2014Liu et al., , 2015Song et al., 2014;Zhang & Cui, 2014;Amoozegar et al., 2015;Corral et al., 2015;Minegishi et al., 2015). During our survey on halophilic archaeal diversity of an inland salt lake of China (Zhang et al., 2013), we obtained a halophilic archaeal strain, YC93 T , which was most closely related to members of the genus Halorussus, as judged based on 16S rRNA gene sequences.The genus Halorussus was proposed to accommodate the species Halorussus rarus based on strains isolated from an artificial marine solar saltern in eastern China (Cui et al., 2010;Oren & Garrity, 2014). Recently, Halorussus ruber was described based on a strain isolated from an inland salt lake in China (Xu et al., 2015). The two strains of Halorussus rarus contained one kind 16S rRNA gene while ...
