Aberystwyth is famous the world over for many things – and now we can add bacteria to the list, after university scientists discovered a new species and named it after the town.

Six scientists from the Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences at Aberystwyth University - Paul Livingstone, Oliver Ingleby, Susan Girdwood, Alan Cookson, Russell Morphew, and David Whitworth - discovered eight new species of bacteria that kill and eat other microbes in sites around Wales.

One was discovered in Aberystwyth – belonging to a genus of bacteria called Corallococcus – and has been named aberystwythensis, which means ‘found in Aberystwyth’.

Dr Whitworth, reader in biochemistry, at IBERS who led the project, said the team had set out to discover new bacteria in a bid to tackle infections.

“We are interested in bacteria that kill and eat other microbes,” Dr Whitworth told the Cambrian News.

“The hope is that these predatory bacteria can show us new ways to kill problem microbes, like the ones that cause infections.

“So we went looking for predatory bacteria in soil, and we found lots of them.

“What surprised us was that the majority of bacteria we found did not belong to known species.

“It turned out that they belonged to eight previously unknown species, so we then characterised these new species to identify their similarities and differences, proving that they were indeed new and different.

“Each species had its own peculiarities, but Corallococcus aberystwythensis was found to be unusually sensitive to acidity, only growing at a very restricted range of pH values."

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