Moorella (bacterium)
Moorella is a genus of bacteria belonging to the phylum Bacillota. These bacteria are thermophilic, anaerobic and endospore-forming and many species of this genus have been isolated from hot springs. Some of these species were formerly included within the genus "Clostridium", but after a taxonomic rearrangement of the class Clostridia, a phylogenetically distinct genus was identified, which was named "Moorella" in honor of the American microbiologist W.E.C. Moore. Phylogeny. The current phylogeny of these bacteria has been inferred from a computational analysis of 16S ribosomal RNA genes of described species belonging to the Moorella Group (a larger  group of bacteria within the family Thermoanaerobacteraceae that also includes other species actually not belonging to genus "Moorella"). The following diagram (cladogram) displaying the species relatedness has been extracted from a wide phylogenetic tree generated from 16S rRNA genes (LTP release 111 of The All-Species Living Tree Project). Notes: "Moorella thermoautotrophica" was formerly named Clostridium thermoautotrophicum, while Clostridium thermoaceticum was the former name of "Moorella thermoacetica". A third genus belongs to "Moorella Group", namely "Ammonifex", but the phylogenetic tree did not include species of this genus among the most-related microorganisms.