In this work, Mauritian soil was screened for an amylase-producing organism and the ability of this organism to produce amylase on different wastes under different conditions was investigated. The isolate was identified as a member of the genus Naxibacter, of the Oxalobacteraceae family. The isolation of this organism might not be surprising since members of this family are commonly found in soils [21], though they may also be found in other environments [22,23,24]. In addition to high similarity of this isolate with the species N. haematophilus based on 16S rRNA gene sequence, morphological observations and results of biochemical tests for the isolate also seemed to agree with a description of this species given in a study [25]. The description of N. varians, given in the same study, was very similar to the one for N. haematophilus and could thus explain why the isolate also showed high homology to the former species. However, phenotypic properties tend to vary between Naxibacter species [22]. Also a number of novel organisms have been introduced in the Oxalobacteraceae family, with some as new genera [24,25] and others as species within new
genera [26]. Therefore, with the absence of 100% homology, the possibility that a new species or a variant of an existing one has been isolated cannot be excluded and further characterisation of the isolate may be needed.