Although geographically closer to the Harbor Porpoise off the coast of central California around 1,500 miles away, the Vaquita is more closely related to a Southern Hemisphere species of porpoise, the Burmeister’s Porpoise. The Burmeister’s Porpoise occurs some 3,000 miles away in Peru, and further south. Most likely, the Vaquita evolved from an ancestral population that moved northward into the Gulf of California around one million years ago during the Pleistocene era.