Battle of Martinique (1779) Battle of Martinique (1779) The Combat de la Martinique, or Battle of Martinique, was a naval encounter on 18 December 1779 between a British squadron under Admiral Hyde Parker and a French squadron under Admiral Toussaint-Guillaume Picquet de la Motte near the island of Martinique in the West Indies. In the fall of 1779, a British fleet under Admiral Hyde Parker was anchored at St. Lucia (which they had captured a year before), while a French fleet under Admiral Toussaint-Guillaume Picquet de la Motte was undergoing a refit at the nearby island of Martinique in the West Indies. Parker was
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,