 AP Columbae was identified as a flare star in 1995; it was discovered as a bright X-ray source in 1999 during a study of bright infra-red point sources from the 2MASS catalogue which did not have an optical counterpart—one of the reasons for an absence of a counterpart would be a large proper motion, which tends to correlate with proximity.Photometry and spectra taken during that work gave an estimate for the intrinsic brightness of the star, which let to a distance estimate of about 6.1 pc.A later work confirmed that the star was nearby, and determined that it was very young.