Monoceros

The history of Monoceros is as dim as the constellation's stars.
This mythological creature was a horned animal with the head and forequarters of a horse, the hindquarters of a stag and the tail of a lion. The unicorn can be traced back to the Assyrians (2700 BC to 600 BC) who sometimes recorded this animal in wall paintings. Modern scholars think that the unicorn originated from a mistaken description of the Indian rhinoceros. According to the lore that grew up around the beast, people who drank from the horn of a unicorn were protected from stomach trouble, poisoning, and epilepsy. Even today, some people believe that the rhinoceros's horn possesses magical powers.
While the constellation may have been in existence prior to the seventeenth century, its first historical reference appears in Jakob Bartsch's star chart of 1624, under the name Unicornu. It is believed that Bartsch, who was Johannes Kepler's son-in-law, relied on earlier works, but such works have never been identified.

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