[3] A constellation in this area was introduced by Isaac Habrecht II in his celestial globe in 1621, who named it Rhombus.

In 1810, the stars of Reticulum were used by William Croswell to produce the constellation Marmor Sculptile, which represented the bust of Christopher Columbus, but this did not catch on among astronomers.

The boundary for this and other constellations was drawn up by Belgian astronomer Eugène Delporte along arcs of right ascension and declination for epoch 1875.

[7][8] Only two of the stars in this constellation are brighter than visual magnitude 5: Alpha (α) and Beta (β) reticuli.

This system gained some notoriety in ufology when the alleged alien abductees Betty and Barney Hill named it as the home of their abductors.