Which porpoise is the smallest living cetacean?

The vaquita is the smallest living cetacean. This tiny porpoise, Phocoena sinus, reaches roughly 150 cm in females and 140 cm in males, making it smaller than dolphins, whales and other porpoises.

Vaquitas live only in shallow, turbid waters at the northern end of Mexico’s Gulf of California, also called the Sea of Cortez. Their name is Spanish for “little cow.” They have a rounded head, no obvious beak and distinctive black patches around the lips and eyes.

The species was formally described in 1958 from skulls, but scientists did not fully document its external appearance until fresh specimens were studied in 1985. Its restricted habitat is the smallest range of any cetacean species.

The biggest threat is accidental entanglement in gillnets, especially nets used illegally to catch totoaba. That crisis has made the vaquita one of the world’s most endangered marine mammals. A common mistake is choosing Hector’s dolphin: it is also small, but it is a dolphin and is larger than a vaquita.