The genus ''Axarus'' is widely distributed with records from the

Holarctic The Holarctic realm is a biogeographic realm that comprises the majority of habitats found throughout the continents in the Northern Hemisphere. It corresponds to the floristic Boreal Kingdom. It includes both the Nearctic zoogeographical reg ...

, the

Neotropics The Neotropical realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting Earth's land surface. Physically, it includes the tropical terrestrial ecoregions of the Americas and the entire South American temperate zone. Definition In biogeog ...

and

Australasia Australasia is a subregion of Oceania, comprising Australia, New Zealand (overlapping with Polynesia), and sometimes including New Guinea and surrounding islands (overlapping with Melanesia). The term is used in a number of different context ...

. There are currently 5 described nearctic species . Erected as a subgenus (''Anceus'') of ''Xenochironomus'' , ''Axarus'' was subsequently renamed and elevated to generic status . The

Connecticut River The Connecticut River is the longest river in the New England region of the United States, flowing roughly southward for through four states. It rises 300 yards (270 m) south of the U.S. border with Quebec, Canada, and discharges into Long Isl ...

in the eastern United States harbors locally dense populations of two ''Axarus'' species, both currently undescribed. These populations are interesting in that they are restricted to specific larval habitat ( varve clay and sometimes rotting wood) and thus there is genetic structure between populations in the river . The Connecticut River species are also notable in that they have extremely well developed polytene chromosomes and also maintain a high degree of inversion polymorphism .

Species

*'' A. dorneri'' ( Malloch, 1915) *'' A. festivus'' Say, 1823 *'' A. rogersi'' (Beck and Beck, 1958) *'' A. scopula'' (Townes, 1945) *'' A. taenionotus'' ( Say, 1829)

References

Chironomidae Chironomoidea genera {{Chironomidae-stub