Animal · Mexico
Vaquita
Phocoena sinus — the name this animal has in the language scientists everywhere share.
The vaquita is the smallest porpoise in the world and lives in one small corner of the Gulf of California, in Mexico, and nowhere else. It is also the rarest sea mammal alive.
Picture credit: Paula Olson (Public domain) · Wikimedia Commons
Where does the vaquita live?
Home: Shallow, murky water in the Gulf of California, Mexico.
In the wild it lives in these countries: Mexico.
Conservation status from the IUCN: critically endangered.
The short profile
Fully grown: up to 150 cm long. It weighs about 43 kilograms. On the menu: meat.
The story behind it
A vaquita is shorter than a grown-up is tall and has dark rings around its eyes and dark lips, so it looks as if it is wearing make-up. It swims alone or in twos in cloudy shallow water, listening for small fish and squid with clicks, because there is little to see down there. The trouble is not hunting: vaquitas drown in gillnets set for a large fish called the totoaba, whose swim bladder is sold illegally for a lot of money. The porpoises have almost vanished. A survey in 2025 found only about seven to ten animals, but it also saw mothers with calves, so the species is still having young. Mexico has closed a refuge area and boats patrol it to pull out nets.
Find it on the globe
Vaquita is there as a tiny animated figure that breathes and looks around. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.
It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.
Questions children ask
How many vaquitas are left?
Very few. A joint visual and acoustic survey in 2025 counted roughly seven to ten animals. That makes the vaquita the most endangered sea mammal in the world.
Why is the vaquita disappearing?
Because of fishing nets. Nobody hunts vaquitas, but they get tangled in gillnets set for a big fish called the totoaba and drown, since they have to come up to breathe.
How big is a vaquita?
About as long as a tall child, up to 150 cm, and roughly 43 kg. That makes it the smallest of all porpoises, dolphins and whales.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this page was checked against public reference sources before publication. Where sources genuinely disagree, the text says so.
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