A Gram-stain-positive, non-motile, coccus-shaped bacterium, designated strain C25T, was isolated from the soil beneath a decomposing pig carcass in Korea and was characterized using a polyphasic taxonomic approach. Comparative 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis showed that strain C25T belongs to the genus Vagococcus in the family Enterococcaceae of the Lactobacillales. 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis showed that strain C25T was closely related to Vagococcus lutrae CCUG 39187T (96.5 % similarity) and Enterococcus termitis LMG 8895T (95.8 %). The chemotaxonomic properties of strain C25T were consistent with those of the genus Vagococcus; the major cellular fatty acids consisted of C16 : 0, C16 : 1ω9c and C18 : 1ω9c, and the cell-wall peptidoglycan type was based on meso-diaminopimelic acid. The G+C content of the genomic DNA was 44 mol%. On the basis of phylogenetic inference, fatty acid profile, and chemotaxonomic and other phenotypic properties, strain C25T is clearly differentiated from closely related type strains of the genus Vagococcus and represents a novel species in this genus, for which the name Vagococcus humatus sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is C25T (=KEMB 562-002T=JCM 31581T).