Greco-Roman poets wrote about his ascent to heaven after his birth and his obeisance to Zeus, who instructed him to bring lightning and thunder from Olympus.

Long honored as a constellation, Pegasus is a subject of very rich iconography, especially through ancient Greek pottery as well as paintings and sculptures of the Renaissance.

The poet Hesiod presents a folk etymology of the name Pegasus as derived from πηγή pēgē 'spring, well', referring to "the pegai of Okeanos, where he was born".

[7] There are several versions of the birth of the winged stallion and his brother Chrysaor in the far distant place at the edge of Earth, Hesiod's "springs of Oceanus", which encircles the inhabited earth, where Perseus found Medusa: One is that they sprang from the blood issuing from Medusa's neck as Perseus was beheading her,[8] similar to the manner in which Athena was born from the head of Zeus after he swallowed her pregnant mother.

A variation of this story holds that they were formed from the mingling of Medusa's blood, pain, and sea foam, implying that Poseidon had involvement in their making.

The last version bears resemblance to Hesiod's account of the birth of Aphrodite from the foam created when the severed genitals of Uranus were cast into the sea by Cronus.

There are varying tales about how Bellerophon found Pegasus; the most common[9] being that the hero was told by Polyeidos to sleep in the temple of Athena, where the goddess visited him in the night and presented him with a golden bridle.

The next morning, still clutching the bridle, Bellerophon found Pegasus drinking at the Pierian spring, caught him, and eventually tamed him.

[13] During World War II, the silhouetted image of Bellerophon the warrior, mounted on the winged Pegasus, was adopted by the United Kingdom's newly raised parachute troops in 1941 as their upper sleeve insignia.

According to the British Army Website, the insignia was designed by the celebrated East Anglian painter Major Edward Seago in May 1942.

Ecuador launched its weather satellite, named Pegaso (pronounced [peˈɣaso], Pegasus in Spanish), on 26 April 2013 but it was damaged by Russian space debris.