Varying between apparent magnitudes 5.19 and 5.23 over 1.48 days, it has the variable star designation of TY Corvi.

[3] It is actually a remote system with a hot blue-white star of spectral type B1.5V and a companion about which little is known.

[4] British astronomer John Flamsteed numbered the stars in an expanded constellation he termed Hydra and Crater, which included the stars of Hydra immediately below the Cup.

31 Crateris ended up in the constellation Corvus after formal boundaries were set in 1922.

These were initially thought to be Mercury's moon before the source was shown to be 31 Crateris.