Listeria cossartiae sp. nov., Listeria farberi sp. nov., Listeria immobilis sp. nov., Listeria portnoyi sp. nov. and Listeria rustica sp. nov., isolated from agricultural water and natural environments.

A total of 27 isolates that could not be classified to the species level were obtained from soil samples from different locations in the contiguous United States and an agricultural water sample from New York. Whole-genome sequence-based average nucleotide identity blast (ANIb) showed that the 27 isolates form five distinct clusters; for each cluster, all draft genomes showed ANI values of <95 % similarity to each other and any currently described species, indicating that each cluster represents a novel species. Of the five novel species, three cluster with the clade and two cluster with . One of the novel species, designated sp. nov., contains two subclusters with an average ANI similarity of 94.9%, which were designated as subspecies. The proposed three novel species (including two subspecies) are sp. nov. (type strain FSL L7-0091=CCUG 74668=LMG 31917; maximum ANI 91.9 % to ), sp. nov. (type strain FSL L7-1519=CCUG 74666=LMG 31920; maximum ANI 87.4 % to subsp. ) and sp. nov. [subsp. (type strain FSL L7-1447=CCUG 74667=LMG 31919; maximum ANI 93.4 % to ) and subsp. (type strain FSL L7-0993=CCUG 74670=LMG 31918; maximum ANI 94.7 % to ). The two proposed novel species are sp. nov. (type strain FSL L7-1582=CCUG 74671=LMG 31921; maximum ANI value of 88.9 % to and 89.2 % to ) and sp. nov. (type strain FSL W9-0585=CCUG 74665=LMG 31922; maximum ANI value of 88.7 % to and 88.9 % to . ). is the first species isolated to date that is non-motile. All five of the novel species are non-haemolytic and negative for phosphatidylinositol-specific phospholipase C activity; the draft genomes lack the virulence genes found in pathogenicity island 1 (LIPI-1), and the internalin genes and , indicating that they are non-pathogenic.