A novel marine actinomycete, designated strain KJ-029T, was isolated from a marine sediment sample (water depth of 226 m) in Kagoshima, Japan. 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis revealed that the new isolate was most closely related to
Micromonospora craniellae
LHW 63014T (99.3 % similarity). Phylogenetic analyses of the genus
Micromonospora
based on 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that strain KJ-029T was clustered with
Micromonospora craniellae
LHW 63014T and
Micromonospora endophytica
202201T. However, digital DNA–DNA hybridization analyses presented low levels of relatedness in the range of 24.8–32.9 % between strain KJ-029T and the above closely related strains. The novel strain contained meso-diaminopimelic acid and 3-OH-diaminopimelic acid, d-glutamic acid, glycine and d-alanine in the cell-wall peptidoglycan. The acyl type of the peptidoglycan was glycolyl and mycolic acids were absent. The major menaquinone was MK-9(H4). The whole-cell sugars consisted of glucose, mannose, xylose and ribose. Phosphatidylethanolamine was detected as the major phospholipid and corresponded to phospholipid type II. The predominant cellular fatty acid was iso-C16 : 0. The DNA G+C content of the genomic DNA was 71.5 mol%. Based on the present polyphasic study, strain KJ-029T represents a novel species of the genus
Micromonospora
, for which the name Micromonospora pelagivivens sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is KJ-029T (=NBRC 113519T=TBRC 9233T).