A Gram-stain-positive, non-motile, rod-shaped, facultatively anaerobic bacterium, designated as IB182487T, was isolated from a seashore sand sample collected from Zhaoshu Island, PR China. Strain IB182487T grew at pH 6.0–10.0 (optimum, pH 8.0), 4–45 °C (optimum, 25–30 °C) and with 0–17 % (w/v) NaCl (optimum, 2–10 %). Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences revealed that strain IB182487T belonged to the genus
Metabacillus
and was closely related to
Metabacillus idriensis
SMC 4352-2T, (96.6 %),
Metabacillus indicus
LMG 22858T (96.5 %),
Metabacillus niabensis
DSM 17723T (96.3 %) and
Metabacillus halosaccharovorans
DSM 25387T (96.1 %). Strain IB182487T had meso-diaminopimelic acid as the diagnostic diamino acid in the cell-wall peptidoglycan and contained menaquinone MK-7 as the predominant isoprenoid quinone. Its polar lipids consisted of diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine, two unidentified phospholipids and three unidentified glycolipids. The major cellular fatty acids of strain IB182487T were iso-C15 : 0 and anteiso-C15 : 0. The whole genome average nucleotide identity and digital DNA–DNA hybridization analysis between the isolate and its closely related type strains demonstrated that the strain significantly differed from other
Metabacillus
species. The genomic DNA G+C content of strain IB182487T was 37.4 mol%. On the basis of phenotypic and chemotaxonomic properties, phylogenetic relatedness as well as genomic characteristics, strain IB182487T represents a novel species of the genus
Metabacillus
, for which the name Metabacillus arenae sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain of M. arenae is IB182487T (=MCCC 1K04629T=JCM 34523T).