It is a gram-negative, rod-shaped bacterium (bacillus), which causes a gastrointestinal disease called salmonellosis, characterized by cramping and diarrhoea.

It is typically considered a microbe of cold-blooded animals, unlike other members of the genus, and is most frequently associated with reptiles.

However, discrete investigations contradict the notion of strict host-specificity, as reports emerged of occurrence in dogs and birds.

[1] Species of Salmonella are closely related to E. coli and they are estimated to have diverged from a common ancestor about 100 million years ago; their genomes still display significant similarity, hence many functional identities.

[9] Also, the virulence determinants, specifically effector proteins, are indicated to be more closely related to enteropathogenic E. coli because some of the gene are missing in S.