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.