Mirror (1825).The Greek constellation of Hydra is an adaptation of a Babylonian constellation: the MUL.APIN includes a "serpent" constellation (MUL.DINGIR.MUS) that loosely corresponds to Hydra. It is one of two Babylonian "serpent" constellations (the other being the origin of the Greek Serpens), a mythological hybrid of serpent, lion and bird.[16]The shape of Hydra resembles a twisting snake, and features as such in some Greek myths. One myth associates it with a water snake that a crow served Apollo in a cup when it was sent to fetch water; Apollo saw through the fraud, and angrily cast the crow, cup, and snake, into the sky. It is also associated with the monster Hydra, with its many heads, killed by Hercules, represented in another constellation.[17] According to legend, if one of the hydra's heads was cut off, two more would grow in its place. However, Hercules burned out the roots of the heads he severed to prevent them from growing again, and thus overcame the hydra.[18]Mythology and equivalents in other culturesIn Hindu Mythology the star that equivalents Hydra is Ashlesha.[19] In Chinese astronomy, the stars that correspond to Hydra are located within the Vermilion Bird and the Azure Dragon. In Japanese culture, the stars are known as Nuriko.[citation needed]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydra_(constellation) Star Names Their Lore and Meaning by Richard Hinckley Allen as reprinted in the Dover edition, 1963The text is in the public domain. http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/Topics/astronomy/_Texts/secondary/ALLSTA/Hydra*.html p246 Close by the Serpent spreads; whose winding SpiresWith ordered stars resemble scaly Fires.Creech's Manilius. Hydra, the Water-snake,is the French Hydre, the German GrosseWasserschlange, and the Italian Idra, and may beclassed among the Argonautic constellations, as it was said to represent the Dragon ofAetes.p247Its stars arenow well defined under this single title, but anciently were described, withtheir riders Corvus and Crater, as Ovid [Fasti, II.266] wrote: Anguis, Avis, Crater, sidera juncta micant. Thiscontinued to the 18th century, Flamsteed and other early astronomers making ofthem even four divisions, Hydra, Hydra etCrater, Hydra etCorvus, and ContinuatioHydrae. Nepa and Nepas, originallyAfrican words for the terrestrial crab and scorpion, seem also to have beenused for this constellation in classic times.Aratos calledit ; Eratosthenes, Hipparchos, and Geminos, , the Hydros ofGermanicus, while others wrote it ; but Eratosthenes againhad it all under , and Hipparchos also used .In Low Latinit has been Hidra, Idra, and Ydra; and, in the Almagest of 1551, Hydrus in themasculine, which, correct enough before Bayer's day, would now confound it withthe new southern figure. Riccioli, and Hyde in his translation of Ulug Beg'scatalogue, had it thus, showing its continuance till then as a common title,although often written Idrus and Idrusaquaticus, as well aschanged to Serpens aquaticus.Other names, alsoused for the northern Dragon, have been Draco, Asiua, and Asuia, or Asvia, which Bayerreferred to as non ; but these are not Greekwords, and doubtless are from Al Shuja, the Snake, transformed, as only the latemediaeval astronomical writers and their immediate successors could transformclassical and Arabic terms into their Low Latin and Greek; Chilmead wrote it Alsugahh. Stillanother conception and title may be seen in the Arabo-LatinAlmagest's Stellatio Ydre: et est species serpentium;et