A pale-yellowish-pigmented strain, 022-2-26 T , was isolated from a starfish, Stellaster equestris. Cells of strain 022-2-26 T were Gram-negative short rods that were chemo-organotrophic, alkalitolerant and mesophilic. The predominant menaquinone was MK-6. The major cellular fatty acids were iso-C 15 : 0 , iso-C 15 : 1 , C 15 : 0 , iso-C 15 : 0 2-OH and iso-C 17 : 0 3-OH (together representing 87 % of the total fatty acids). The DNA G+C content was 30.1 mol%. A 16S rRNA gene sequence of the isolate was determined and phylogenetic analyses revealed that strain 022-2-26 T formed a robust clade (neighbour-joining algorithm with a bootstrap value of 95 % and parsimony and maximum-likelihood algorithms) with type strains of species in the genus Winogradskyella. The closest phylogenetic neighbour of strain 022-2-26 T was Winogradskyella poriferorum UST030701-295 T (96 % 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity; 59 differences between sequences). On the basis of the phenotypic and chemotaxonomic characteristics and the phylogenetic evidence, it is proposed that strain 022-2-26 T represents a novel species, Winogradskyella exilis sp. nov. The type strain is 022-2-26 T (5KMM 6013 T 5CIP 109976 T ).The genus Winogradskyella was created within the family Flavobacteriaceae in 2005 to accommodate three species, Winogradskyella thalassocola, W. epiphytica and W. eximia, marine bacteria respectively isolated from the green alga Acrosiphonia sonderi and the brown algae Chorda filum and Laminaria japonica (Nedashkovskaya et al., 2005). A fourth species was described shortly afterwards: Winogradskyella poriferorum, isolated from a sponge (Lau et al., 2005). We report here the polyphasic characterization of a novel bacterium isolated from the starfish Stellaster equestris.The starfish was collected with dragging equipment in October 1998 at a depth of 100 m (30 % salinity, 15 u C) in the South China Sea (26 u 28.39 N 122 u 29.09 E). The starfish was pre-rinsed in sterilized seawater and a piece (about 3 g) of tegument tissue was removed aseptically. Strain 022-2-26 T was isolated from the tissue homogenates by plating samples (0.1 ml) on agar plates of marine agar 2216 (MA; Oxoid) and on medium B. Medium B contained (w/v) 0.2 % Bacto peptone (Difco), 0.2 % casein hydrolysate (Merck), 0.2 % Bacto yeast extract (Oxoid), 0.1 % glucose, 0.02 % KH 2 PO 4 , 0.005 % MgSO 4 . 7H 2 O and 1.5 % Bacto agar (Oxoid) in 50 % (v/v) natural seawater and 50 % (v/v) distilled water at pH 7.5-7.8, as described elsewhere (Ivanova et al., 1996).The phenotypic properties used for the characterization of Flavobacterium species were determined by using standard procedures (Smibert & Krieg, 1994) and as described elsewhere (McMeekin et al., 1971;Ivanova et al., 1996Ivanova et al., , 1998Ivanova et al., , 2005Bernardet et al., 2002). Strain 022-2-26 T was cultured at 22-24 u C. To test for spreading growth and gliding motility, strain 022-2-26 T was grown on medium B with the peptone content reduced to 0.02 % (0.2 g l 21 ). Gliding motility was verified by using ...