A novel bacterial strain, S1-9(T), was isolated from a lead-zinc tailing in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, China. Cells of strain S1-9(T) were Gram-stain-negative, ellipsoidal endospore-forming, aerobic rods and motile by means of peritrichous flagella. On the basis of 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis, strain S1-9(T) was shown to belong to the genus Paenibacillus and the closest phylogenetic relatives were Paenibacillus glucanolyticus DSM 5162(T) (96.8% similarity), Paenibacillus lautus NRRL NRS-666(T) (96.5%) and Paenibacillus lactis MB 1871(T) (95.4%). The predominant menaquinone was MK-7. The major cellular fatty acids were anteiso-C15:0 and iso-C16:0. The polar lipid profile contained phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine, diphosphatidylglycerol, two unknown phospholipids and two unknown lipids. The total DNA G+C content of strain S1-9(T) was 49.9 mol%. Based on the low levels of DNA-DNA relatedness (ranging from 21.8 to 48.4%) to the type strains of the above species of the genus Paenibacillus and unique phenotypic characteristics, strain S1-9(T) is considered to represent a novel species of the genus Paenibacillus, for which the name Paenibacillus qingshengii sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is S1-9(T) ( = CCTCC AB 2014290(T) = JCM 30613(T)).