The author of the genus is Harris (1841,
A report on the insects of Massachusetts injurious to vegetation), revised (?) by Walker (1855). The first author was presumably
Thaddeus William Harris (1795-1856), see biographical note at
Gray Herbarium, also
here.
Apantesis is Greek, and is usually translated as "meeting" or "official greeting". Power and Sedgwick,
The New Sydenham Society's Lexicon of Medicine and The Allied Sciences (1881), via Google books, gives the meaning of
apantesis (απαντησισ) as the act of going to meet, opposition, antagonism, an event or consequence of disease.
Another possibility for the origin of the name is Greek
apanthesis (απανθησισ), meaning the time of plucking flowers, time of floral fading (Power and Sedgwick, 1881). There is a fossil genus of butterflies with this name,
Apanthesis Scudder 1889.
