Olympic swimmers inspire names for Las Vegas museum’s new shark babies — VIDEO

When officials at the Las Vegas Natural History Museum were tasked with naming three newly hatched sharks, they went straight for the gold — and bronze.

In honor of the Olympic Games, they dubbed the baby sharks Phelps, King and Miller after some of America’s top swimmers: gold medal winners Michael Phelps and Lilly King, and Las Vegas resident Cody Miller, who won bronze Sunday in the 100-meter breaststroke.

After the Las Vegas Review-Journal shared the shark news with Miller on Thursday, he replied with an enthusiastic text message from Rio.

“That’s AWESOME!!” Miller wrote. “Sharks are my favorite animals! Never thought I’d get support like this! Thank you Las Vegas for all the love! It’s been great! Excited to come home!”

BANDED BAMBOO SHARKS

Executive Director Marilyn Gillespie said the trio of banded bamboo sharks emerged this week in the museum’s hatchery at 900 Las Vegas Blvd. North.

The hatchery is part of the museum’s larger marine exhibit, which is intended to give Southern Nevadans a glimpse of ocean life. The shark egg sacs are clipped to a piece of glass in a small backlit tank so museum visitors can watch the development process of the squirmy embryos.

“We feel very much like winners doing this program, so it just seemed to be very fitting to have our little sharks be gold medalists,” Gillespie said.

She said the museum has been hatching shark eggs for at least a decade, but this is the first time eggs came from its only full-time female shark resident.

The nameless shark, known only as “the mama,” was artificially inseminated at the Shark Reef exhibit at Mandalay Bay. The babies hatched about two months later.

OFF TO THE SHARK REEF AT MANDALAY BAY

They will find a full-time home at the Shark Reef when they are too big to live together in the hatchery tank at the museum. Banded bamboo sharks typically grow to 3 feet in length.

For now, the sharks are still too young for anyone to determine their sex.

They have no distinguishable features, and each could fit in the palm of a hand.

The mama shark laid a total of 24 eggs, and the museum is expecting at least three more babies to hatch in the next week.

As for their names?

“Well, we’ll probably just keep going on the trend we’re going,” Gillespie said.

So Phelps, King and Miller soon might find themselves fin-to-fin with Ledecky or Lochte.

Contact Blake Apgar at bapgar@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0342. Find @BlakeApgarLV on Twitter.