Aquifex means water-maker in Latin, and refers to the fact that its method of respiration creates water.

Comparison of the A. aeolicus genome to other organisms showed that around 16% of its genes originated from the Archaea domain.

The complete genome for A. aeolicus consists of 1,551,335 base pairs with over 1500 open reading frames (ORFs) or chromosomal coding sequences.

An extremely large portion (over 90%) of the genome are protein-coding regions and there are no significant non-coding repeats.

Though the A. aeolicus genome is dense, many enzyme subunits used for respiration processes are found in separate operons.

Carbon fixation is done using the reductive TCA cycle and forms acetyl-CoA as well as many other bio-synthetic materials.

[5] Phylogenetic trees that are based on small subunit rRNA suggest that Aquificales are some of the earliest bacteria that branched from Archaea.

[8] The success of the properties within the hydrogenases of Aquifex mark the genus as a possible renewable bio-catalysts for hydrogen based fuel cells.