A beluga whale has been filmed passing a rugby ball back and forth with crew on a passing boat.

The whale was filmed approaching the South African Gemini Craft boat in the Arctic Ocean near the North Pole.

A member of the boat’s crew threw a rugby ball out the to the whale, before the talented sea creature scooped it up in its mouth.

A beluga whale that could be a defected ‘Russian spy’ has been filmed passing a rugby ball back and forth with crew on a passing boat

A crew member filmed the ensuing game of rugby unfold as another friend onboard threw an official 2019 Rugby World Cup ball into the ocean

The animal grabbed the ball in its mouth before swimming back to the boat.

The video has been viewed more than one million times since it was uploaded to Facebook and the footage has spread like wildfire across numerous sites such as Reddit.

A number of amazed people have left comments in disbelief of the beluga whale’s skills.

‘I can’t believe what I’m seeing,’ one person said.

Another one commented: ‘How many people can say they’ve played fetch with a beluga?’

The Gemini Crew had earlier been sailing near the Norwegian town of Hammer fest, which recently gained media attention about a possible Russian spy whale swimming in its waters.

Russia is understood to have moved a pod of beluga whales to a secret Arctic base before one of the sea creatures reportedly swam to Norway.

The animal surfaces and grabs the ball in its mouth before it swims back to the boat and releases the ball

A beluga was found wearing a harness marked ‘equipment of St Petersburg’ around the area in April.

The sea creature, which had the harness for a camera, was hanging around the port performing tricks for locals in return for food, with many residents joking he had ‘defected’.

Russia has dismissed claims its ‘spy whale’ was caught snooping on the fishing vessels of a NATO country – despite the Defence Ministry in Moscow previously admitting to experiments using these mammals for espionage.

A number of amazed people have left comments in disbelief of the beluga whale’s sport skills