Watch: Mystery creature from Florida man's security camera footage identified as frog

March 16 (UPI) -- A mystery creature that repeatedly triggered a Florida man's home security camera was mistaken for a human hand and an octopus before being identified as a Cuban tree frog.

Dean Gordon said he was asleep at his Lehigh Acres home when he received an alert from his home security camera at 1:40 a.m. Sunday.

Gordon said he checked the camera footage on his phone and was not sure of what he was seeing in the back yard.

"I thought it was a human hand and I was like, 'Hold on. Let me watch it again,'" Gordon told WBBH-TV. "Then I said, 'That looks like an octopus.'"

He said a second alert, from the doorbell camera at the front of his home, offered a slightly clearer look.

"The second video was from around front," Gordon said. "That's when he stopped and I saw the leg and I think the eye. You could see the frog's legs, big eye."

Gordon posted his footage to Facebook , asking neighbors if they could identify the creature.

Locals said the animal appears to be a Cuban tree frog, an invasive species known to live in the area. Some commenters said the amphibians had been seen climbing on their own cameras.

Matthew Metcalf, a visiting instructor at Florida Gulf Coast University, said the frogs are expert climbers.

"If it's in urban areas, you'll see them crawling up onto signs and onto people's roofs," he said.

This article originally appeared on UPI.com