Bacillus
genus of bacteria
Bacillus is a genus of mostly Gram-stain-positive, rod-shaped bacteria in the family Bacillaceae. Its type species is Bacillus subtilis. Most members are aerobic or facultatively anaerobic, and many can form resistant endospores. Some species or older cultures may be Gram-variable.
Members of the genus occur in soil, water, sediments, foods, and in association with plants and animals. Several species have medical, agricultural, food, or industrial importance. Bacillus anthracis causes anthrax, Bacillus cereus can cause food poisoning and other infections, Bacillus thuringiensis produces insecticidal proteins, and B. subtilis is widely used as a model organism and in biotechnology.
Taxonomy and nomenclature
The name is derived from the Latin masculine noun bacillus, meaning a small staff, wand, or rod. The genus is attributed to Ferdinand Cohn, who placed the species originally described by Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg as Vibrio subtilis in Bacillus. The term "bacillus" is also used informally for any rod-shaped bacterium, while Bacilli is the name of the bacterial class that contains the genus.
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Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q212032. The Library of Congress control number is sh85010778. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Bacillus” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.