The organism is isolated from samples collected directly from solfataric fields or piped hot spring water in eastern Japan.
The archaeon utilizes maltose, starch, malate, yeast extract, peptone, beef extract, casamino acids and gelatin as carbon sources, cannot utilize D-arabinose, D-fructose, lactose, sucrose, D-xylose, acetate, butyrate, formate, fumarate, propionate, pyruvate, succinate, methanol, formamide, methylamine or trimethylamine.
Unlike some other genetically similar archaea such as Thermocladium or Caldivirga, Vulcanisaeta grows in the absence of vitamin mixture or archaeal cell-extract solution in the medium.
This contrasts with the genera Thermoproteus and Pyrobaculum, which are distributed worldwide, including the Azores, Iceland, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, the Philippines, Russia, and the United States.
[1] The currently accepted taxonomy is based on the List of Prokaryotic names with Standing in Nomenclature (LPSN) [2] and National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI)[1] V. thermophila V. souniana V. distributa V. thermophila Yim et al. 2015 V. distributa Itoh, Suzuki & Nakase 2002 "V. moutnovskia" Gumerov et al. 2011 V. souniana Itoh, Suzuki & Nakase 2002