That branch of the Lake Como, which turns to Noon, is not only the opening words of the famous "Betrothed”, But a place with dark presences. Never heard of the terrible creature of the Lariosaurus?
Well if you have no idea who he is, you just need to know that he is the homegrown half-brother of Nessie, the fearsome Loch Ness monster. It will certainly not be as famous as its Scottish counterpart, but the “swater harrow"Floats between myth e legend along the banks of the Lake Como for about 70 years.
While, however, the Scottish cousins have built a real monster around their own monster business attracting onlookers from all over the world, the history of Lariosaurus stay a little folk tale guarded by the inhabitants of the banks of the Lake Como.
The origins of the Lariosaurus
Unlike what one might think the Lariosaurus it's not a mythological animal, but one of the many dinosaurs that populated theit was prehistoric. In 1830 a Pederledo, a small town in the province of Lecco, the first fossils of this particular species were found, which are still preserved in natural science museum di Monaco of Bavaria. From the analyzes conducted on the remains it emerged that the Lariosaurus was an aquatic reptile belonging to the god family Notosaurs.
Its length was between 60 and 130 centimeters. His paws were very particular. The particularly massive front ones had a very similar shape to that of one fin, certainly useful for moving easily in the waters of the Lake Como. The rear ones, on the other hand, were characterized by their smallness, and for having preserved a five-fingered structure, perhaps webbed. What undoubtedly did not go unnoticed were hers terrible and sharp jaws, which certainly contributed to creating the legend about the danger of Lariosaurus
Between legend and reality: sightings of the lake monster
It all began in 1946 when in the small town of Colico, two hunters came across a strange creature about ten meters long. Taken by amazement and frightened by the presence of the strange being, they reacted by opening fire. The creature dived back into the waters to disappear into the depths of the lake. It was a Lariosaurus? In the 50s, a series of sightings continued. In 1957 a Dongo, in the province of How to Live Aligned with, a group of biologists dived to plumb part of the lake bed, and swore they saw a silhouette very similar to that of a crocodile.
That it was really the Lariosaurus? After a few decades of silence, at the beginning of the new millennium we returned to talk about the Lariosaurus. In 2003, a group of fishermen on a reconnaissance on the lake claimed to have noticed the shadow of a strange creature with gigantic dimensions. Where the boundary between reality e legend? The Lake Como, It is one of the deepest lakes in Europe. His abyss are places of mystery, where the imagination quickly runs to imagine worlds elsewhere. The writer and naturalist John Steinbeck he said: "The depths of the abyss are like the dark and deep levels of our mind. There the dream symbols rest and sometimes emerge to catch your breath. An ocean without its monsters would be like a dreamless sleep ”.
