Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed has shared a clip of a whale swimming around Dubai Marina.
The Crown Prince of Dubai posted a video of the mammal on his Instagram stories.
He said it was believed to be a Bryde’s whale.
“Truly a rare and beautiful creature to watch,” he wrote in a caption accompanying the video, which was shot by the crew of My Ocean Company, based in Dubai.
The owner of the boating company, Jonny Dodge, shared the clip on Instagram originally.
The Bryde's whale, pronounced "broodus", is part of the baleen species.
It is considered one of the “great whales” and belongs to the same family as blue and humpback whales. A Bryde's whale was spotted in Abu Dhabi last October during a marine survey.
The Environment Agency Abu Dhabi, which made the discovery, said at the time the presence of whales is an indicator of the good health and quality of the emirate’s waters.
Bryde's whales eat about 630kg of food every day, mainly krill, shrimp and a variety of schooling fish, like herring, mackerel and sardines.
They use different methods to feed, such as skimming the surface, lunging and creating bubble nets, which they do in co-operation with other whales.
Bryde's whales can weigh up to 25 tonnes and adults measure between 12 and 16 metres in length. They are found in tropical and sub-tropical waters.
The species was named after Johan Bryde, the Norwegian consul to South Africa in the early 20th century, who built the country’s first modern whaling station.
Last year, the carcass of a 12-metre Bryde's whale was found floating off Dubai's coast. It was moved to a safe location, where experts from the Sharjah Environment and Protected Areas Authority and Zayed University studied the remains.
There are believed to be 90,000 to 100,000 of the animals worldwide, most of which live in the Northern Hemisphere.
Whales swim round Palm Jumeirah in 2020: in pictures
