Lariosauro

Italian folklore Folklore of Italy refers to the folklore and urban legends of Italy. Within the Italian territory, various people have followed each other over time, each of which has left its mark on current culture. Some tales also come from Christianization, ...

, Lariosauro is a lake monster said to live in

Lake Como Lake Como ( , ) also known as Lario, is a lake of glacial origin in Lombardy, Italy. It has an area of , making it the third-largest lake in Italy, after Lake Garda and Lake Maggiore. At over deep, it is one of the deepest lakes in Europe. ...

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

, about north of

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

. Como is one of the deepest European lakes, at about at the deepest location. In 1946, eyewitnesses allegedly reported seeing a reptile-like animal swimming in the waters of the lake. It was called ''lariosauro'', the same name used a century before to name a prehistoric reptile whose fossilized remains were found by the lake (''

Lariosaurus ''Lariosaurus'' is an extinct genus of nothosaurid from the Middle Triassic (late Anisian to late Ladinian stage) of central and western Europe and China. With a complete specimen of ''L. xingyiensis'' measuring long and ''L. hongguoensis'' poss ...

balsami''). A weekly of

Como Como (, ; , or ; ) is a city and (municipality) in Lombardy, Italy. It is the administrative capital of the Province of Como. Nestled at the southwestern branch of the picturesque Lake Como, the city is a renowned tourist destination, ce ...

, a week after the first article, wrote it was a

sturgeon Sturgeon (from Old English ultimately from Proto-Indo-European language, Proto-Indo-European *''str̥(Hx)yón''-) is the common name for the 27 species of fish belonging to the family Acipenseridae. The earliest sturgeon fossils date to the ...

, but the sturgeon as well as the monster appear to be more simply a hoax invented by the press. There were other sightings, or alleged sightings, in Lake Como. * In 1954 in

Argegno Argegno ( Comasco: ) is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Como in the Italian region Lombardy, located about north of Milan and about north of Como. As of March 2024, it had a population of 679 and an area of . The local econom ...

a creature with round muzzle and back and webbed paws. * In August 1957 an enormous monster in the waters between Dongo and

Musso Munawar Musso (1897 – 31 October 1948), commonly known as Musso, was an Indonesian revolutionary and political figure who was the leader of the Communist Party of Indonesia and one of the key figures in the 1948 Madiun affair. Biography Earl ...

. * In September 1957 a strange animal whose head was described as similar to a

crocodile Crocodiles (family (biology), family Crocodylidae) or true crocodiles are large, semiaquatic reptiles that live throughout the tropics in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Australia. The term "crocodile" is sometimes used more loosely to include ...

head. * In 2003 a giant

eel Eels are ray-finned fish belonging to the order Anguilliformes (), which consists of eight suborders, 20 families, 164 genera, and about 1000 species. Eels undergo considerable development from the early larval stage to the eventual adult stage ...

, long, in

Lecco Lecco (, , ; ) is a city of approximately 47,000 inhabitants in Lombardy, Northern Italy, north of Milan. It lies at the end of the south-eastern branch of Lake Como (the branch is named ''Branch of Lecco'' / ''Ramo di Lecco''). The Bergamasqu ...

. Skeptic researcher Giorgio Castiglioni, who studied these cases, thinks that the animal of 1954 was an

otter Otters are carnivorous mammals in the subfamily Lutrinae. The 13 extant otter species are all semiaquatic, aquatic, or marine. Lutrinae is a branch of the Mustelidae family, which includes weasels, badgers, mink, and wolverines, among ...

, the monster of August 1957 a hoax, the beast of September 1957 possibly a

pike Pike, Pikes or The Pike may refer to: Fish * Blue pike or blue walleye, an extinct color morph of the yellow walleye ''Sander vitreus'' * Ctenoluciidae, the "pike characins", some species of which are commonly known as pikes * ''Esox'', genus of ...

, and the 2003 eel was a group of fish swimming together.{{citation needed, date=January 2020 Italian legendary creatures Legendary reptiles Lake monsters it:Mostro lacustre#Lago di Como