A novel Gram-staining-positive, rod-shaped, motile, strictly aerobic, endospore-forming bacterium, designated WCC 4585(T), was isolated from a pharmaceutical production line. The organism grew optimally at 30 °C, at pH 8 and in the presence of 0.5 % (w/v) NaCl. Oval endospores were formed subterminally and terminally in swollen sporangia. The cell-wall diamino acid was meso-diaminopimelic acid (type A1γ) and the genomic DNA G+C content was 38.7 mol%. The major menaquinone was MK-7. The cellular fatty acid profile contained major amounts of iso-C15 : 0, anteiso-C15 : 0 and anteiso-C17 : 0, and the cellular phospholipids were diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine and aminophospholipid. The isolate was most closely related to Bacillus oceanisediminis H2(T), Bacillus infantis SMC 4352-1(T), Bacillus firmus NCIMB 9366(T), Bacillus circulans ATCC 4513(T) and Bacillus horneckiae DSM 23495(T) with which it shared less than 98.0 % 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity. DNA-DNA relatedness values between strain WCC 4585(T) and five type strains of related species were ≤27 % and sequence similarity values based on groEL sequences were ≤88.7 %. On the basis of the characteristics presented, strain WCC 4585(T) is proposed to represent a novel species, Bacillus gottheilii sp. nov. The type strain is WCC 4585(T)( = DSM 23668(T) = CCUG 59876(T) = LMG 25856(T)).