HD 131496 is an orange K-type dwarf (about 1.34 solar masses, 4,846 K, 4.44 solar radii), 132 light-years from Earth. HD 131496 b is a 1.80-Jupiter-mass companion, with an orbital period of 2.45 years, at 2.010 AU from its star, on an eccentric orbit (e ≈ 0.18), discovered in 2011 via radial velocity. The planet betrayed itself through the star's reflex motion — a technique that first revealed worlds around Sun-like stars in the 1990s and remains a workhorse of exoplanet discovery. The planet's marked eccentricity suggests past scattering events or perturbations from unseen companions.