Printed in Great Britain The Identification, Taxonomy and Classification of Luminous Bacteria

The results of a study of 51 strains of luminous bacteria and 12 strains of non-luminous bacteria from related genera show that the luminous bacteria can be divided into three major groups. These groups span three genera, namely Vibrio, Photobacterium and a suggested new genus, Lucibacterium, to accommodate the ‘ Photobacterium harveyi ’ organisms. Revised descriptions of the species are given