Kobe Bryant studied sharks
Shark experts have named a great white after basketball legend Kobe Bryant, who was apparently fascinated with the fearsome creatures.
The 12-foot-long shark was spotted in the Pacific Ocean near Guadalupe Island, Mexico, which is a gathering spot for white sharks, according to Michael Domeier with the Marine Conservation Science Institute.
The shark is a young adult and is new to the area, he said.
“I lived in Southern California during Kobe Bryant’s entire career as a Laker, so I could personally feel the shock of his sudden death despite the fact I was thousands of miles away in Patagonia,” Domeier told CNN in an email.
Bryant died last month in a helicopter crash that also killed his daughter, Gianna, and seven others.
The Marine Conservation Science Institute maintains a photo-ID database of the sharks that migrate to the waters around Guadalupe Island each year. Researchers can use the photos to identify sharks by their distinctive coloring, scars and other features.
The photographer who first captures full-body pictures of the left and right side of a shark can pick its name, but many are just known by a number.
This shark was No. 24 — which was also one of the numbers Bryant wore as a Los Angeles Laker.
That’s not the only connection between Bryant and the shark.
Martin Graf, the diver, who photographed No. 24, actually took Bryant in a shark cage back in 2013 and gave him an up-close look at two great whites.
Graf runs Shark Diver, which takes divers out to Guadalupe Island for encounters with great whites. He was on a cruise ship with limited internet access, but Cindy Michaels, the director of communications for Shark Diver shared the story with CNN.
She says he met up with their dive boat in a private yacht.
“He got into our cages and he spent a good short chunk of the day, hanging out on the boat and in the cages,” she said.
Bryant told Graf that he became interested in sharks when he was living in Italy as a kid, she said.