A hemagglutinating virus (8KS0813) was isolated from a red-necked stint. Hemagglutination inhibition and neutralization tests indicated that 8KS0813 was antigenically related to a prototype strain, APMV-6/duck/Hong Kong/18/199/77, but with an 8-and 16-fold difference, respectively, in their titers. The full genome sequence of 8KS0813 showed 98.6 % nucleotide sequence identity to that of APMV-6/duck/Italy/4524-2/07, which has been reported to belong to an APMV-6 subgroup, and showed less similarity to that of the prototype strain (70.6 % similarity). The growth of 8KS0813 and the prototype strain in four different cell cultures was greatly enhanced by adding trypsin. Interestingly, this virus induced syncytia only in Vero cells. 8KS0813 was identified as APMV-6/rednecked stint/Japan/8KS0813/08, but it is antigenically and genetically distinguishable from the prototype strain, suggesting that variant APMV-6 is circulating in migratory birds.Paramyxoviruses are pleomorphic enveloped viruses containing a non-segmented ssRNA genome that replicate in the cytoplasm of host cells. Members of a great variety of mammalian and avian species can be infected with these viruses [12]. Paramyxoviruses isolated from birds are divided into two distinct groups: avian paramyxovirus (APMV) and avian metapneumovirus. APMVs belong to the genus Avulavirus of the subfamily Paramyxoviridae and are divided into nine serotypes, from APMV-1 to -9 [1]. Recently, viruses of three new serotypes, APMV-10, APMV-11 and APMV-12, were isolated from rockhopper penguins, common snipes and wigeons, respectively [2,10,17]. Subgrouping within the APMV serotype has also been Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article