Fruiting myxobacteria from the South Carolina coast.

The widespread distribution of fruiting myxobacteria in the soil is fairly well known; however, there have never been reports on these bacteria isolated from the sand of an ocean beach. To establish the presence of myxobacteria in this possible habitat, samples of sand from the high tide marks of four South Carolina beaches were collected (see Table 1). One of the samples, 11, differed from the other 13 in that it consisted of woody, plant debris that had been washed ashore during a high tide. A sterile tongue depressor was used as a spatula to collect the sand from the top 3 to 4 mm of the high tide mark and to place it in a sterile WhirlPak bag (Nasco, Inc., Ft. Atkinson, Wis.). No special precaution, such as low-temperature stor-