An orange bacterial strain, designated G5(T), was isolated during the study of the bacterial diversity of a coal mine. The cell wall of strain G5(T) contained peptidoglycan type A4α (l-Lys-Gly-l-Glu) and the sugars xylose and mannose. The major menaquinones were MK-8 (45.0 %) and MK-9 (34.0 %) and minor amounts of MK-7 and MK-8(H(2)) were also found. The major fatty acids were anteiso-C(15 : 0) (44.9 %) and iso-C(15 : 0) (44.2 %). The main cellular polar lipids were diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol and phosphatidylinositol. 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis showed that strain G5(T) was closely related to Yaniella halotolerans YIM 70085(T) and Yaniella flava YIM 70178(T) (both 96.7 % 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity). The genomic DNA G+C content of strain G5(T) was 61.6 mol%. These data and other phenotypic characteristics clearly indicated that strain G5(T) represents a novel species of the genus Yaniella, for which the name Yaniella fodinae sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is G5(T) (=MTCC 9846(T)=DSM 22966(T)).