Three Beluga Whales at the Aquas aquarium in Hamada, Japan are delighting visitors by all sorts of tricks such as juggling balls and twisting through hoops. However, their best and most unusual trick - blowing air bubbles.

The trio, who were trained by scuba divers, have been doing this trick for about two years.

The act involves a diver blowing air through a regulator to provide the whales enough air to blow with. As soon as they receive the signal from the diver, the trio blow big bubbles that resemble smoke rings into the water and sometimes straight in the face of the delighted audience that is standing behind the glass panes. Another cool trick they have learnt is to spurt bubbles from their blowholes.

Beluga (white) whales while bigger than dolphins, are one of the smallest whales. Though the babies tend to be gray in color when born, adult Beluga's are distinctively white and have a dorsal ridge instead of a fin.

Also, unlike other whales, they have melon-shaped heads, which are extremely malleable - they can change the shape of their head by simply blowing air around their sinuses. Belugas whales are also extremely social and playful and often spray their trainers with water. The whales are sometimes called 'Sea Canary', because of the beautiful sounds they make.

With only about 100,000 of this species left in the wild, they are on the list of endangered animals. As with other similar animals, they are victims of over-fishing, pollution and general loss of habitat.

Source: Telegraph.co.uk, Wikipedia.org, DailyMail.co.uk