Jordan Lowe recently moved to the countryside with her family. When Lowe was out and about on her own recently, she spotted what she thought was a cute beaver in a pond... or was it?

The book author enthusiastically took numerous shots of the industrious rodent and later posted an edited clip on her Instagram page.

In it, the animal can first be seen near a tree trunk, after which it makes several laps in the pond, seemingly enjoying life.

Lowe obviously enjoyed filming the pond dweller extensively.

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"After seeing him wash his little hands, I started to believe I could definitely convince my husband to allow him to live inside," she joked in the onscreen text.

"He could have a little bed at the end of our bed... will he love us as his own?"

But then the "beaver" finally came out of the water. When the woman saw its tail, she felt quite differently.

Instead of a cute beaver, Lowe had been filming and observing a large swimming rat the whole time, turning the supposedly cute animal into a rather unpleasant contemporary in a flash.

"My beaver son actually turned out to be a giant rat," she wrote.

Lowe has now come to terms with this shock in an interview with Newsweek.

"We just moved to the country and we’re getting familiar with the land! I spent the day at the pond to photograph birds and saw this guy swimming laps," she said.

"At first, I thought it was a little beaver and immediately fell in love. I watched him swim, wash his cute little hands, go after fish, and take a breather on the bank."

She spent about 30 minutes there until she got to the bottom of it.

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On Instagram, Lowe tried to take the matter with humor in the end, saying that watching the rat was at least better than worrying about her tax return that day.

"Good news, I spent the day outside watching wildlife instead of filing my taxes*, bad news I do not have a new pet beaver. Please respect my privacy at this time," she wrote in the caption.