A novel, lipid-degrading bacterium (strain AHD-1) was isolated from soil regularly contaminated with washing-machine wastewater in Sfax, Tunisia. When this strain was grown in a medium containing 2% triacylglycerol, the hydrolysis products were found to be diacylglycerols, monoacylglycerols and free fatty acids. This strain was an aerobic, mesophilic, Gram-negative, motile, non-sporulating bacterium, capable of growing optimally at pH 7 and 27 degrees C. The predominant fatty acids were found to be C16:1omega7c (31%), C16:0 (28.1%), C18:1 omega7c (16.3%) and C17:0 (5.8%). Phylogenetic analysis of the 16S rRNA gene showed that this isolate is a new strain belonging to the genus Pseudomonas. Strain AHD-1 was found to be closely related to Pseudomonas azotoformans IAM 1603T, Pseudomonas gessardii CIP 105469T and Pseudomonas libanensis CIP 105460T with 99.7%, 99.56% and 99.54% of similarity, respectively.