No, that was not a real alligator found in the Connecticut River in Suffield, Conn., over the weekend.

An alligator spotted on the river’s banks prompted calls to the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, who sent an officer Monday to investigate, agency spokesman Dennis Schain said.

And what the officer found was indeed an animal — a stuffed animal.

Schain described the “alligator” as a “pretend toy” about 5 feet long that had been left at the water’s edge. DEEP officials do not know where it came from or why it was there, but the stuffed gator has since been removed.

The scare comes a little less than two weeks after a Nebraska boy was dragged and killed by an alligator while his family was visiting Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla. Wild alligators and crocodiles are not endemic to New England.

Nicole Hernandez can be reached at nicole.hernandez@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @NRHSJax.

Work at Boston Globe Media