Saint-Pierre, Martinique Saint-Pierre, Martinique Saint-Pierre () is a town and commune of France's Caribbean overseas department of Martinique, founded in 1635 by Pierre Belain d'Esnambuc. Before the total destruction of Saint-Pierre in 1902 by a volcanic eruption, it was the most important city of Martinique culturally and economically, being known as "the Paris of the Caribbean". While Fort-de-France was the official administrative capital, Saint-Pierre was the cultural capital of Martinique. After the disaster, Fort-de-France grew in economic importance. Saint-Pierre was founded in 1635 by Pierre Belain d'Esnambuc, a French trader and adventurer, as the first permanent French colony on the island of
Mammals of the Caribbean fauna particularly vulnerable to disruption by humans and the invasive species they introduced. (The large predator niches of the Caribbean islands were formerly occupied by endemic outsize hawks, falcons, caracaras, teratorns and owls—e.g. "Titanohierax", "Gigantohierax", "Buteogallus borrasi", "Caracara tellustris", "Oscaravis olsoni", "Ornimegalonyx" and "Tyto pollens"—all of which are now extinct. Cuban crocodiles also have more terrestrial habits than other extant crocodilians.) Opossums (order Didelphimorphia), the largest group of American marsupials, are of limited diversity in the Caribbean. The large opossum "Didelphis marsupialis" is found on Trinidad and Tobago and in the Windward Islands up to Dominica, being found on Martinique,