A dolphin has been hailed as a hero after it came to the aid of two whales that were beached with seemingly no hope of rescue.

The pair of pygmy sperm whales were stuck on the shore of New Zealand's North Island. Although a group of (human) conservationists had tried to free them for an hour, they were about to give up.

But then, according to reports, a bottlenose dolphin known as Moko "appeared, communicated with the whales and led them to safety."

"I don't speak whale, and I don't speak dolphin," one local man told the BBC. "But there was obviously something that went on.... The dolphin did what we had failed to do."