sharksouls:

little things that bug me when did Pegasus become the name of a fictional species instead of the name of an individual mythological character

When is a good question. The why I’d assume is “We already have this one winged horse named pegasus and winged horse is a bit of a mouthful. Lets just name future winged horses after him as a species..”  Since Greek imagery has lasted so long and influenced the growth of pretty much all European culture through Rome.. For the when we can probably find the first use (or recorded use) of it used as a species name from a google search.

Some googling later

  Apparently there is another word for winged horse. Pterippus. Not at all surprised that didn’t catch on. I actually could not find anything particularly useful in the few minutes I googled it. Sorry shark.