Objective:To study the prevalence of Akabane virus (AKAV) in Yunnan province.Methods:A group of sentinel animals including 5 goats and 10 cattles which were sero-negative for bluetongue virus and AKAV were located in Mangshi, Yunnan province, to monitor arbovirus activity from April to October 2015. The heparin-anticoagulated blood of the animals was collected weekly for arbovirus isolation. Erythrocytes were lysed in distilied water and inoculated onto BHK-21 monolayer for virus isolation. After the cells showed cytopathic effect (CPE), AKAV in the cell cuture were identified by RT-PCR amplification with AKAV S gene segment specific primers and gene sequencing.Results:The result indicated that BHK-21 cell inoculated with the blood from one sentinel goat showed CPE 48 h post inoculation. One day old suckling mice intracerebrally inoculated with the supernatant of the cell culture, they started to become sick and died after 3 days. RT-PCR identification and S gene sequencing showed that the isolate was AKAV (numbered as 16415). The full length of S segment gene of 16415 is 856 nt, encoding 233 amino acids of protein N, and 91 amino acids of protein Ns. Phylogenetic analysis showed that, among the AKAV strains isolated from China and abroad, the newly isolated 16415 was in the same branch with the other viruses in different geographical regions, and their S segment nucleotide sequence have a high homology of 83.8%-97.7%. The further study show that 16415 and the AKAV isolated from the domestic bamboo rat in Guangxi in 2013 have a closest realtionship in evolution, the nucleotide sequence homology was 97.7%, and amino acid homology is 99.6%. Compared with the Japanese OBE-1 strain, the amino acids of protein N of 16415 and the AKAVs, isolated from banboo rat in Guangxi and Anopheles vagas in Mangshi of Yunnan province of China, have two common diverse amino acids loci located at the 115th and 206th sites respectively. Conclusions:It is concluded that AKAV was newly isolated from goat in Mangshi of Yunnan province, which may have important epidemiological significance.