abstract
| - The deciduous woodlands of the Palaearctic ecozone are found mostly north of the Alps, where Eurasia narrows and few places are far from the sea. It is a region of high rainfall and temperate climate. There are four marked seasons: dormant winter; spring in which leaves and flowers appear; summer with the most vigorous growth; and autumn, which is a time of fruiting just before the trees lose their leaves for winter. The predominant trees are oaks, ashes and beech, below which is usually an understory of smaller trees and a thick undergrowth. A typical animal of this environment is the bricket, a small browsing hadrosaur, not dissimilar from its Cretaceous ancestors. In the Cretaceous period there were only the hadrosaurne hadrosaurs living in this corner of the continent, but later the lambeosaurines migrated here from further east (part of the great spread of the hadrosaurs over the northern continents). The bricket lives in small herds in the dense undergrowth and bramble thickets, usually resting during the day and feeding at dusk and at dawn. The expanded crest, found in both males and females, is both used as a display structure, particularly during the autumnal mating season, and as a deflecting device when it must move swiftly through the vegetation.
|