SCHENECTADY — Camille Sasinowski was at Steinmetz Park enjoying Saturday's burst of spring weather when she spied what she initially dismissed as an usually large tree branch floating in the pond.

Sasinowski, who lives close to the park and is the president of the Goose Hill Neighborhood Association, didn't think much of it, since people sometimes use the pond — dubbed Steinmetz Lake despite its dinky size — as a dumping ground for debris.

But before the weekend was over, she started fielding calls from neighborhood residents who reported seeing what appeared to be something else lurking in the pond. Could it be ... an alligator?

As if pandemic-weary residents didn't have enough to worry about, a photo posted on Facebook showing the creature's jagged tail protruding from the pond fueled speculation that a dangerous reptile might somehow have made its way into the waters.

Schenectady police officers responded to the Lenox Road park for the possible gator sighting around 5:30 p.m. Sunday, a city police spokesman said.

By Monday, the department had erected a mobile camera pole near the edge of the pond for any signs of the animal, whatever it was. Asked about the prospects of an alligator in Schenectady, Mayor Gary McCarthy deadpanned a joke about the Loch Ness Monster.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation said later Monday that its officers had determined that the animal in the pond was a "large common snapping turtle with a 16-inch carapace/shell just below the surface of the water, which could have been mistaken as an alligator swimming," and that there were no tracks along the shoreline that might have indicated another creature on the move.

But not before Jane Gray, who was walking her dog Monday afternoon, and others had some fun with the notion of an alligator in the water.

"There's a muskrat that lives in there — or it did," Gray said ominously.

Adrionna Baker, who had taken pictures of the critter, was incredulous at the DEC's determination.

"The spikes were outrageous," she said. "That's a far cry from a snapping turtle."

The most common habitat for snapping turtles are shallow ponds or streams; the animals do sometimes float on the surface with only their protective shells exposed.

In captivity, snapping turtles can become overweight as a result of overfeeding.

Alligators, meanwhile, are common in Florida and other southern states but tend not to range farther north than the Carolinas. At birth, they are only about 8 inches long but can grow to 15 feet long and up to 1,000 pounds.

Though the DEC does not keep a record of alligators that have been found in the state, two of the reptiles that had been illegally released by their owners were found in Binghamton in 2017. In 2012 and '13, Long Island went through a period in which 16 more alligators were captured or turned in, according to the New York Post.

State law bars the possession, transportation, sale, transfer, exchange, importation and release of wild animals — including alligators.

This is not the first time an underwater species has grabbed headlines in the Electric City.

In the summer of 2016, a fisherman snagged an elusive sharp-tooted alligator gar — which while definitely scary-looking is a fish and not a reptile — in the waters of Iroquois Lake in Central Park.

Weeks earlier, a lifeguard at the pool had caught the prehistoric creature but soon released it back into the lake.

At the time, the DEC declared the long-nosed fish a threat to plant life in Iroquois Lake and its stock of sunfish.

While the alligator gar didn't make it, the snapping turtle — at least for the time being — will continue to live its best life in Steinmetz Park, the DEC said.