canis Meyer 1966Staphylococcus aureus biovar E Hájek and Marsálek 1971 Staphylococcus intermedius is a Gram-positive, catalase positive member of the bacterial genus Staphylococcus consisting of clustered cocci.

Strains of this species were originally isolated from the anterior nares of pigeons, dogs, cats, mink, and horses.

[2] Clinical tests for detection of methicillin-resistant S. aureus may produce false positives by detecting S. intermedius, as this species shares some phenotypic traits with methicillin-resistant S. aureus strains.

[3] It has been theorized that S. intermedius has previously been misidentified as S. aureus in human dog bite wound infections,[4] which is why molecular technologies such as MALDI-TOF and PCR are preferred in modern veterinary clinical microbiology laboratories for their more accurate identifications over biochemical tests.

[5][6] S. intermedius is largely phenotypically indiscriminate from Staphylococcus pseudintermedius and Staphylococcus delphini, and therefore the three organisms are considered to be included in the more general 'Staphylococcus intermedius group'.