A bacterial strain designated SLH-16 T was isolated from a fish culture pond in Taiwan and characterized using a polyphasic taxonomic approach. Cells of strain SLH-16 T were Gram-stain-negative, aerobic, motile rods that were covered by large capsules and formed yellow colonies. Growth occurred at 20-40 8C (optimum, 37-40 8C), at pH 4.0-9.0 (optimum, pH 5.0-6.0) and with 0-0.5 % (w/v) NaCl (optimum, 0 %). Phylogenetic analyses based on 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that strain SLH-16 T belonged to the genus Novosphingobium and was related most closely to Novosphingobium taihuense T3-B9 T with sequence similarity of 97.3 %. The major fatty acids (.10 %) of strain SLH-16 T were C 18 : 1 v7c, summed feature 3 (C 16 : 1 v7c and/or C 16 : 1 v6c) and C 16 : 0 .The major 2-hydroxy fatty acid was C 14 : 0 2-OH. The polar lipid profile consisted of phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine, diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylmonomethylethanolamine, phosphatidyldimethylethanolamine, sphingoglycolipid, phosphatidylcholine and several uncharacterized lipids. The major polyamine was spermidine. The major isoprenoid quinone was Q-10.The DNA G+C content was 65.2 mol%. The DNA-DNA hybridization value for strain SLH-16 T and the type strain of N. taihuense was less than 43.2 %. Phenotypic characteristics of the novel strain also differed from those of the closest related species of the genus Novosphingobium. On the basis of the genotypic, chemotaxonomic and phenotypic data, strain SLH-16 T represents a novel species in the genus Novosphingobium, for which the name Novosphingobium piscinae sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is SLH-16 T (5BCRC 80888 T 5LMG 28418 T 5KCTC 42194 T ).The genus Novosphingobium in the family Sphingomonadaceae of the class Alphaproteobacteria was proposed by Takeuchi et al. (2001). At the time of writing, this genus comprises 34 recognized species (http://www.bacterio.net/ novosphingobium.html). Members of the genus Novosphingobium are characterized as Gram-stain-negative, nonspore-forming, rod-shaped, non-motile or motile, aerobic and chemo-organotrophic bacteria; chemotaxonomically they possess C 18 : 1 v7c as the predominant fatty acid and C 14 : 0 2-OH as the major 2-hydroxy fatty acid, with spermidine as the major polyamine, Q-10 as the major ubiquinone, glycosphingolipids and a DNA G+C content of between 62 and 71 mol% (Takeuchi et al., 2001;Lin et al., 2014; Kämpfer et al., 2015). The present study was carried out to clarify the taxonomic position of a novel species of the genus Novosphingobium by using a polyphasic taxonomic approach.During our investigations on the biodiversity of bacteria in the water of a fish culture pond in the Jiali District (GPS location: 238 109 380 N 1208 109 510 E), Tainan County, Taiwan, a novel yellow-pigmented bacterium, designated SLH-16 T , was isolated and selected for detailed taxonomic analyses. Strain SLH-16 T was maintained on R2A agar (BD Difco) at 25 8C, and preserved at (80 8C as a suspension in 20 % (v/v) glycerol R2A broth or by lyophilization w...