Bruin The Baby Great White Shark Spotted Near NYC

NEW YORK CITY — A great white shark could be paying a visit to New York City, but beachgoers won't have to worry about a "Jaws"-like encounter. Bruin, a baby shark caught near the Long Island's east end last month, was spotted just south of the Rockaway Peninsula in Queens on Monday, according to tracking data from the marine biology group OCEARCH.

Bruin has been heading west along Long Island's South Shore since earlier this month. He was last spotted near Jones Beach, just east of the Rockaways, on Sept. 19, OCEARCH's tracker shows.

"Next stop, NYC?" the group wrote on Twitter on Monday.

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But New Yorkers wouldn't see something that resembles the giant sharks of Hollywood lore if Bruin makes a stop in the city. At less than a year old, he's about five feet long and weighs 101 pounds, according to his OCEARCH profile.

His surfacing near the Rockaways follows a visit by Mary Lee, a 3,500-pound, 16-foot female great white who was tracked near the peninsula in June.

Bruin was caught near Montauk, Long Island on Aug. 12. Since then, he's had a roundabout 907-mile journey to the New York City area — he swam south to waters far off the coast of Atlantic City, New Jersey before coming back up near Long Island, OCEARCH data shows.

Bruin is among dozens of sharks that OCEARCH crews have tagged and tracked, with location data published to its Global Shark Tracker. A shark's location is shared with OCEARCH when its dorsal fin gets above the water and sends a signal to a satellite overhead.

Mary Lee has become arguably the most famous OCEARCH shark, with 129,000 Twitter followers.

(Lead image courtesy of OCEARCH)