The "Lariosauro"

Colico, autumn 1946. Two hunters from the foggy Brianza are in the territory of Pian di Spagna, looking for game. Suddenly, a strange noise coming from the nearby waters gets their attention and what they see in the following moments is anything but chilling: a horrific creature with a reddish color and more than ten meters long, emerges from the water a short distance away from the shore. The two men shoot the monster, they wound it and it immediately swims away. And so, all that remains of the mysterious creature is just a dark spot that plunge into the lake.

The news caused an immediate sensation and, as expected, appeared on the front pages of the local newspapers. In the following days people in the villages of the lake couldn't help talking about it. With a bit of terror, fascination and curiosity, the inhabitants of Lake Como eagerly awaited further details on the monster in the subsequent publications of the "Corriere Comasco". In the days to come, there were many people who talked about their alleged sightings, even if the creature was described from time to time in very different if not contradictory ways, until the story was forgotten for some years. We are now in 1954, on the shores of a small town on the other side of the lake. Father and son notice a strange creature, with different characteristics than the one sighted eight years earlier, which nevertheless brings the question of the lake monster back into the limelight. In 1957, a group of marine biologists also claimed to have encountered a strange fish in the depths of the lake, this time with the appearance of a crocodile. And then oblivion again, until 2003, when some fishermen swear they saw an animal of considerable size resembling an eel near Dervio. As in all events of this type, we should wonder where the line between reality and legend, between science and folklore can be drawn. There is no doubt that the sightings that have been discussed so much over the years have in most cases been inventions due to popular imagination, and this gave life to various tourist gimmicks, books, narratives, television programs and disseminations. In fact, the celebrity of our monster has even led him to appear in some Mickey Mouse comics as a nice little animal. There is also a song by Davide Van De Sfroos, the most famous singer and songwriter of the Lake. He dedicated these verses to it in the song "El Mustro":

I saw the lake tear apart I saw the sky cover and the moon fall was made like an eel, it was as big as a boat and ate all the stars a tarred snake, with the mouth open and with eyes from another world a monster

The legend of this strange animal that has been inspiring the most imaginative locals for a long time, goes back to the real events of the "Lariosaurus Balsami", the scientific name with which the local paleontology had defined an extinct aquatic reptile that lived here about 230 million years ago. The first fossil specimen was indeed found right on the eastern branch of the lake in 1839 in Perledo (Varenna). The small predator probably resembled a lizard. Between 60 cm and 130 cm long, it had a relatively long and slender physiognomy that ended in a flattened skull. The hind legs are thought to have been webbed, while the forelegs were shaped like flippers. From the "Lariosaurus Balsami" people drew inspiration to baptize our very personal lake monster with the name of "Lariosauro" or Larrie. So, if you are on the eastern branch of Lake Como keep your eyes open, maybe Larrie will show up to say hello.