The Caçadores (hunters) were the elite light infantry troops of the Portuguese Army, in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Units of Caçadores – with features somewhat different from the original ones – continued to exist in the Portuguese Armed Forces until the 1970s, namely the Caçadores Especiais (special hunters) – several special forces companies of the Portuguese Army created by the Special Operations Troops Centre at the beginning of the 1960s and heavily employed throughout the Portuguese Colonial War (1961-1974) in Africa.