Two Gram-negative, facultatively anaerobic bacterial strains, MANO22D(T) and MANO22P, were isolated from a tidal flat area of Dae-Chun, Chung-Nam, Korea. The isolates were rod-shaped and were motile by means of one or more polar flagella. They grew at 1-12 % NaCl, 4-45 degrees C and pH 4.1-8.8 and were oxidase-positive, arginine dihydrolase-negative and sensitive to the vibriostatic agent O/129. The isolates required Na(+) for growth, produced acid, but no gas, from D-glucose under anaerobic conditions and utilized a wide range of compounds as sole carbon and energy sources. A phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences revealed that the strains belong to the Gammaproteobacteria and are specifically related to Vibrio species. They were most closely related to Vibrio rumoiensis FERM P-14531(T), with which they were found to share 98.65 % 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity. In the phylogenetic tree, the two novel strains comprised a relatively long subline of descent, sharing a branching point with the outlying species V. rumoiensis, and were found to occupy a phylogenetically distant position on the main Vibrio branch. The levels of DNA-DNA hybridization with respect to V. rumoiensis FERM P-14531(T), which is their most closely related phylogenetically related Vibrio species, were 7.4 % (MANO22D(T)) and 3.9 % (MANO22P). Thus, the two novel isolates appear to represent a novel species within the genus Vibrio, for which the name Vibrio litoralis sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is MANO22D(T) (=KCTC 12520(T)=DSM 17657(T)).