An amazing sighting of a rare white whale this week has captured the imagination of the internet.

But whales have long pricked the public consciousness, with a few going on to become stars.

Here are nine of the most famous whales in history.

52Hz whale

This mysterious whale has been called "the loneliest whale in the world", because it sings at a pitch that no other whale does. It has been recorded calling, on and off, since 1989.

Nobody knows what species it belongs to, because no one has ever seen it in the flesh. Its songs sound a lot like those of blue whales but are not an exact match. It might be a hybrid: perhaps the offspring of a blue whale and a fin whale.

Marine biologists say there is no hard evidence that the whale is lonely, and its unusual song may not mark it as an outcast.

Migaloo

Migaloo is the real-life white whale, and was originally thought to be the animal spotted once again this week, though there is confusion as to that whale's identity.

He is a humpback whale with entirely white skin, when discovered it was the only such whale known – although there are a few other whales that are mostly white.

He was first spotted in 1991, near Byron Bay in New South Wales, Australia. His name comes from an indigenous Australian word for "white fella".

Migaloo swiftly became a favourite for whale-watchers – so much so, in 2009 the Australian government declared an exclusion zone around him so that he would not be disturbed any more.

In 2012 scientists studied Migaloo's DNA and discovered that he has a mutation in a gene called tyrosinase, which is involved in making skin pigmentation. The mutation has turned the gene off completely, explaining why Migaloo's skin is so pale.

The Thames whale

On Thursday January 19th 2006, British divers received reports of a whale heading up stream in the River Thames, passing into London.

The 5 metre-long Northern Bottlenose Whale (Hyperoodon ampullatus) swam upstream towards the Battersea area, where the whale stayed until it eventually stranded the next day.

Over the following days, millions of people around the globe followed efforts to rescue the whale, via TV news channels, national radio and the internet. Thousands more flocked to the banks of the River Thames to watch the dramatic rescue attempt unfolding.

It was the first time the species had been seen in the Thames since records began in 1913.

She later died from convulsions as she was being rescued shortly after 19:00 GMT on 21 January 2006, and her body was displayed at the UK’s Natural History Museum in Tring, Hertfordshire, UK.

Mocha Dick

Moby Dick is a work of fiction but it was inspired by a dramatic story of a tragic encounter with a whale of epic (undoubtedly exaggerated) proportions.

Hermann Melville published his novel in 1851 but several decades earlier a giant albino sperm whale, reported to be 85ft long, attacked a whaling ship called the Essex.

She sunk leaving her crew drifting in smaller whaling ships for about three thousand miles before they reached South America, taking 80 days to do so. Only eight of the crew's original 21 sailors survived.

Mocha Dick, the whale's real name, was finally captured and killed in 1838. He reportedly had markings of dozens of other attacks.

Anonymous blue whale

One anonymous whale reached into the homes of millions of people around the world.

It was a blue whale, the largest species of animal that has ever lived. At more than 30 metres long, it appeared in the epic BBC Earth production The Blue Planet, and can be seen below.

This single whale did much to reveal the wonders of the ocean depths to vast audiences.

But four of the world’s most famous cetaceans aren’t whales at all, despite their common names. They are either pilot whales or killer whales, otherwise known as orcas, both of which are actually related to dolphins.

Old Tom

Whaling was big business for much of the 19th Century.

At a similar time to the life of Mocha Dick, on the other side of the world an orca (killer whale) in Australia was living a very different life. Instead of being hunted, he helped whalers hunt other whales.

Old Tom and his pod herded baleen whales into Eden Bay to be captured and killed by waiting whalers. Their efforts were richly rewarded.

They were given scraps of tasty whale to eat including their lips and tongues. This exchange was called "the law of the tongue". Old Tom is affectionately remembered and his skeleton is still preserved at the Eden Killer Whale Museum.

Keiko

Kekio is perhaps the most celebrated orca of all.

Captured in 1979 as a near two-year-old calf, Keiko found fame as the star of the 1993 family film Free Willy, after which public pressure grew to release him back to the wild. Training for his reintroduction began in 1996, and after 2000 his trainers began taking him out into the sea on open ocean swims designed to prepare him for a wild life.

But Keiko rarely interacted with wild orcas, and never integrated into a wild pod.

He also struggled to learn how to hunt, making shallower and less frequent dives than wild whales.

Eventually, and despite the best efforts of his trainers, he could not break his need for human contact, and kept following or returning to the trainers' boat.

Keiko eventually died, still semi-captive in 2003.

In 2009 a study was published by US and Danish scientists in the journal Marine Mammal Science, documenting the attempts to return Keiko to the ocean.

Tilikum

Less celebrated, but made famous by his actions and the subsequent 2013 documentary Blackfish, is the male orca known as Tilikum.

A captive killer whale, Tilikum attacked and killed his trainer at a SeaWorld facility in Orlando, Florida in 2010, leading to international news coverage. According to the subsequent documentary, the orca had attacked and killed human trainers before, with some experts arguing his behaviour was a direct result of the conditions in which he was kept.

Tilikum still performs at SeaWorld, though under a different regime than before the fatalities.

Attacks by orcas on humans in the wild are extremely rare. Contrary to popular perception, they have been recorded, though no-one has been hurt.

Researcher Chris Pierpoint of the Marine Mammal Observer Association was working in Antarctica when he was once subjected to a rather sophisticated, planned attack by a group of orcas.

Wild orcas in the region cooperate to hunt by swimming together towards seals resting on ice floes.

Chris Pierpoint had that done to him when in a rib in Antarctica.

A famous incidence occurred in the 1960s when a surfer was knocked off his board, but he escaped unscathed, and the orca didn't bite.

In 2008 in Alaska, a child swimming in the sea also described how an orca made a bee-line toward him, before aborting a supposed attack at the last minute.

One idea is that air bubbles in neoprene wetsuits can confuse the echolocation of orcas, so they do not realise that they are approaching a person.

Angry pilot whale

A single pilot whale has been recorded biting a human.

In 1991 Lisa Costello was snorkeling off the coast of Hawaii when a pod of short-finned pilot whales surrounded her.

One of the animals bit her leg and then grabbed her by the ankle, dragging her under, to a depth of around 40 feet. Before she could drown the whale returned her to the surface, where she survived with just minor injuries.

After this extraordinary encounter, and years of press coverage around the world, the whale was not seen again.