Strain CY1518T was isolated from an anaerobic fermentation liquid of food waste treatment plant in Beijing, PR China, and characterized to assess its taxonomy. Cells of CY1518T were Gram-stain-negative, oxidase-negative, catalase-positive and ellipsoidal. Growth occurred at 20–42 °C (optimum, 37 °C), pH 6.0–10.0 (optimum, pH 8) and with 0–6.0 % (w/v) NaCl (optimum, 1.5%). Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences indicated that strain CY1518T belongs to the genus
Alcanivorax
, with the highest sequence similarity to
Alcanivorax pacificus
W11-5T (95.97 %), followed by
Alcanivorax indicus
SW127T (95.08%). The similarity between strain CY1518T and other strains of
Alcanivorax
was less than 95 %. The genomic DNA G+C content of strain CY1518T was 60.88 mol%. The average nucleotide identity, average amino acid identity and digital DNA–DNA hybridization values between strain CY1518T and the closely related taxa
A. pacificus
W11-5T and
A. indicus
SW127T were 77.61, 78.03 and 21.2 % and 74.15, 70.02 and 19.3%, respectively. The strain was able to use d-serine, Tween 40 and some organic acid compounds for growth. The polar lipids comprised aminophospholipid, diphosphatidylglycerol, glycolipid, an unknown polar lipid, phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylglycerol and phospholipid. The principal fatty acids (>5 %) were C19 : 0 cyclo ω8c (36.3%), C16 : 0 (32.3%), C12 : 0 3-OH (8.3%) and C12 : 0 (7.6%). Based on its phenotypic, genotypic and genomic characteristics, strain CY1518T represents a novel species in the genus
Alcanivorax
, for which the name Alcanivorax quisquiliarum sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is CY1518T (=GDMCC 1.2918T=JCM 35120T).