Chaohusaurus is an extinct genus of basal ichthyopterygian, depending on definition possibly ichthyosaur, from the Early Triassic of Chaohu and Yuanan, China.

Ichthyopterygia was a designation introduced by Sir Richard Owen in 1840 to designate the Jurassic ichthyosaurs that were known at the time, but the term is now used more often for both true Ichthyosauria and their more primitive early and middle Triassic ancestors.