The surface of the cell of Aquaspirillum serpens has clear structures which take the form of linear bands at intervals of 17-18.5 nanometers (nm).

At the base of the innermost disk, there are numerous fibrillar structures, which could be vestigial or simply poorly preserved.

There were up to seven of these rings which were up to 90 nm in diameter and were made of many protein subunits arranged in a plate-shaped structure.

[3] The murein sacculus, a bag-shaped structure made of peptidoglycan, is also perforated on its poles when the flagellum is removed.

These perforations are larger than those of the outer membrane, but are smaller than the diameters of the disks on the basal body.