Mary Lee's Back -- In Barnegat Bay?

Mary Lee, the 3,400-pound great white shark whose Twitter following turned shark tracking into a national phenomenon earlier this year, has returned to the Jersey Shore, according to the latest pings from her satellite tag.

A ping recorded at 10:19 a.m. on Thursday on the OCEARCH Shark Tracker website showed the great white as being in the Sedge Islands on the back side of Island Beach State Park near Barnegat Inlet.

Chances that the massive great white is actually in Barnegat Bay, however, are slim, as water depths in the bay are relatively shallow. Nautical charts of the area created by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show water depths of up to 23 feet in Oyster Creek Channel from Barnegat Inlet, but much of the channel is 10 to 11 feet deep, with pockets where the water is even more shallow -- so shallow Mary Lee would be scraping the bottom with her belly, more than likely.

OCEARCH researchers tweeted that the pings Thursday morning -- one was recorded in Manahawkin Bay, south of the Route 72 causeway bridge at 5:20 a.m. - were ”low quality” pings. “We suspect she is moving north up the beach on the outside,” the tweet said.

Mary Lee garnered widespread attention in May, when the Twitter account @MaryLeeShark began captivating followers with witty remarks -- like this one about her supposed foray into Barnegat Bay:

The account had roughly 16,000 followers when the big fish first made a splash in early May; as of Thursday more than 90,000 people worldwide were following along.

Mary Lee -- who was 3,456 pounds and 16 feet long when she was tagged off Cape Cod in September 2012 -- is one of more than 100 sharks around the world being tracked by OCEARCH, a nonprofit organization dedicated to shark research. But it was the Twitter frenzy over Mary Lee that focused attention on the organization’s research and led to thoughtful discussions about sharks through much of the summer.

The purpose of the OCEARCH tagging is to help scientists gather data about various sharks. Its projects use SPOT tags -- Smart Position and Temperature, which are the only devices capable of real-time tracking of fine and broad scale movement, anywhere in the world, according to the organization.

“SPOT tag data enables the identification of critical areas for highly migratory species such as white sharks, including feeding, breeding and nursery areas, migratory pathways and coastal areas where human/shark interaction is possible.”

If you want to follow Mary Lee or any of the apex predators OCEARCH has tagged around the world, visit the Shark Tracker page here.