Lariosauro

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

, Lariosauro is a

lake monster A lake monster is a lake-dwelling entity in folklore. The most famous example is the Loch Ness Monster. Depictions of lake monsters are often similar to those of sea monsters. In the ''Motif-Index of Folk-Literature'', entities classified as "lak ...

said to live in Lake Como in

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

, about north of

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

. 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 length of just , it was one of the smallest known nothosaurs. First discovered at Pe ...

balsami''). A weekly of

Como Como (, ; lmo, Còmm, label= Comasco , or ; lat, Novum Comum; rm, Com; french: Côme) is a city and ''comune'' in Lombardy, Italy. It is the administrative capital of the Province of Como. Its proximity to Lake Como and to the Alps h ...

, a week after the first article, wrote it was a sturgeon, 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 31 December 2004, it had a population of 650 and an area of .All demographi ...

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, in Kediri, East Java – Madiun, on 31 October 1948) was a leader of the Communist Party of Indonesia and one of the key figures in the 1948 Madiun affair. Biography Early life Musso was born Munawar Musso in 1897, Pagu, ...

. * In September 1957 a strange animal whose head was described as similar to a crocodile head. * In 2003 a giant

eel Eels are ray-finned fish belonging to the order Anguilliformes (), which consists of eight suborders, 19 families, 111 genera, and about 800 species. Eels undergo considerable development from the early larval stage to the eventual adult stage ...

, long, in

Lecco Lecco (, , ; lmo, label= Lecchese, Lècch ) is a city of 48,131 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''). ...

. Skeptic researcher Giorgio Castiglioni, who studied these cases, thinks that the animal of 1954 was an otter, 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.{{fact, date=January 2020 Italian legendary creatures Legendary reptiles Water monsters it:Mostro lacustre#Lago di Como