Two groups of bacteria were recovered from Atlantic salmon with winter ulcer disease/syndrome, of which one cluster was found to be closest to Moritella marina (43% re-association by DNA:DNA hybridization), and was named as V. viscosus. By 16S rDNA sequencing, the closest match was with Moritella and M. marina (99.1% sequence homology) so that the organism was re classified to Moritella, but as a new species, as M. viscosa, despite the high