One slightly halophilic marine actinomycete strain JMC 06001 was isolated from a saline mud sample collected from the Island Naozhou in the South China Sea, near Zhanjiang, a city of southern China. The fermentation broth of strain JMC 06001 strongly inhibited the growth of Staphylococcus aureaus, Sarcina lutea, Bacillus subtilis, Escherichia coli, Micrococcus luteus and Proteus vulgaris. The combination of morphology, physiological and biochemical characteristics, chemotaxonomic data and 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis supported the view that strain JMC 06001 belong to a known species of the genus Steptomyces, S. peucetius. The strain studied grown well on most media tested, with white aeriel hyphae and pale yellow to pale brown substance hyphae. Yellow diffusible pigments were produced on oatmeal agar (ISP 3), potato extract agar and glucose/asparagines agar, and pale brown to deep brown diffusible pigments were produced on yeast extract/malt extract agar (ISP 2), glycerol/asparagine agar (ISP5), peptone-yeast ext-Fe agar (ISP 6) and nutrient agar. Growth occurred at 4 ℃~40 ℃ and pH 6.0~9.0, with optimum growth at 28 ℃ and pH 7.0. The tolerant range of NaCl was 0~1.5 mol/L, with best growth occurring in media containing 0.2~0.5 mol/L NaCl.