Bacillus Species

You should have learned about some differential tests to distinguish each species.

Look up pictures and find defining characteristics of each. But as Future said, you should have learned about some differential tests by now if you're working on your unknowns.

I'm doing this right now too... There are a series of unknown tests you can do in order to determine the differences... today we put our unknown into 5 different broths - citrate, a green one I don't remember at the moment (but it turns blue if it reacts) and then 3 broths with different sugars and tubes at the bottom to catch gas if the unknown produces a gas. Did you already quadrant streak and gram stain your unknown? Are you sure its Bacillus? We have a bunch of unknowns in our class - mine is a gram positive coccus - most likely Staphylococcus.