myxobacteria

The myxobacteria ("slime bacteria") are a group of bacteria that predominantly live in the soil and feed on insoluble organic substances. The myxobacteria have very large genomes, relative to other bacteria, e.g. 9–10 million nucleotides. Sorangium cellulosum has the largest (as of 2008) bacterial genome, at 13.0 million nucleotides. Myxobacteria are included among the delta group of proteobacteria, a large taxon of Gram-negative forms.