Brachybacterium

Brachybacterium is a genus of Gram positive, nonmotile bacteria. The cells are coccoid during the stationary phase, and irregular rods during the exponential phase. The genus name comes from Greek word "brachy", meaning short, and Latin "bacterium", meaning rods, referencing the short rods noted during the exponential phase.
The type strain of the genus, "Brachybacterium faecium", was first isolated from poultry deep litter in 1966 along with several other species. Speciation of the strains was performed in 1975, but three of the strains did not cluster with any known taxon. In 1988, further work was performed on the previously unclassified organisms, and the current genus was proposed. "Brachybacteria" have been isolated from a stool sample of a healthy three-year-old girl, garden soil, Beaufort cheese, medieval wall paintings, a mouse liver, roots, salt fermented seafood, oil-contaminated coastal sand, sediment samples, and seawater. A strain of "Brachybacterium" has been indicated as the cause of bloodborne infection in an 83 year-old man.