We compared the 16S rRNA gene sequences of 14 strains of Pseudomonas stutzeri, including type strain CCUG 11256 and strain ZoBell (= ATCC 14405), which represented the seven P. stutzeri genomovars (DNA-DNA similarity groups) that have been described. Our sequence analysis revealed clusters which were highly correlated with genomovar clusters derived from DNA-DNA hybridization data. In addition, we identified signature nucleotide positions for each genomovar. We found that the 16S rRNA gene sequences of genomovar 6 strains SP1402T (T = type strain) and LS401 were different enough from the sequence of the type strain of P. stutzeri that these organisms should be placed in a new species, Pseudomonas balearica. The type strain of P. balearica is strain SP1402 (= DSM 6083).