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Polophylax (Greek: guardian of the celestial [south] pole) was a southern constellation that lay where Tucana and Grus now are.
It was introduced by Petrus Plancius in the small celestial planispheres on his large wall map of 1592.[1] It is also shown on his smaller world map of 1594 and on world maps copied from Plancius.[2]
It was superseded by the twelve constellations which Petrus Plancius formed in late 1597 or early 1598 from the southern star observations of Pieter Dircksz Keyser and Frederik de Houtman.[2]