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It has been more than three decades since Al Lakusta noticed giant ribs poking out of an embankment during a fall hike along Pipestone Creek, southwest of Grand Prairie, Alta.

The junior high school science teacher knew the dark brown bones had belonged to a dinosaur, but he has waited half a lifetime to learn the identity of the mysterious creature he found that sunny day in the mid-1970s.

Yesterday, University of Alberta paleontologist Philip Currie and his colleagues finally announced that Mr. Lakusta had in fact discovered a new species, a vegetarian the size of a rhinoceros with a frill on the back of its skull and one or more long, stumpy horns sprouting from the front.

At a ceremony last night, the scientists told a surprised Mr. Lakusta, now 66 and retired, that they are naming the beast after him. The Pipestone creek dinosaur will henceforth be known as Pachyrhinosaurus lakustai.

Pachyrhinosaurus means thick-nosed lizard, but lakusta i is in honour of Mr. Lakusta's determination and hard work. It is also a recognition of the importance of what he unearthed.

The dinosaur bone bed he found is exceptional, and contained 27 individual creatures, including youngsters. They died together 72.5 million years ago, perhaps crossing a river or in a catastrophic flood.

After the initial discovery, Mr. Lakusta secured the necessary permits to start digging. He would take friends and family members to the site after he finished work at a local junior high school. He methodically stored the bones in his basement and tried to find experts to help him figure out what they were.

"Fortunately I had a large basement. There were tons of fossilized bones," he said.

After he had dug for about 18 months, though, the permits were not renewed. He said provincial officials told him only professionals could do the job. He wasn't pleased, especially when there seemed to be little interest in the site. He gave the bones he had excavated to the local museum, and they were put into storage.

He had also taken samples to the Provincial Museum of Alberta in Edmonton, where a curator said they were duck-billed dinosaurs. But Mr. Lakusta had submitted a field book with some sketches as well, and eventually photocopies found their way into the hands of experts.

Paleontologist Dr. Currie, the former head of dinosaur research at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, said he first saw the bones in the 1970s and knew they were important. But at the time, he says, there was little funding and few paleontologists actively collecting dinosaur fossils.

"We had dinosaurs all over the province to deal with," he said.

Work didn't begin at the site until 1986, and the excavation lasted for three years. It took two more decades to clean and analyze the bones from so many individual dinosaurs, Dr. Currie said. The last bones were removed from rock only two years ago.

Each specimen added new information about the ancient animals. Dr. Currie and his colleagues waffled for years on whether the dinosaurs Mr. Lakusta found were different enough from similar ones unearthed in southern Alberta to qualify as a separate species. A computer analysis comparing the characteristics of the Pipestone Creek creatures with other horned dinosaurs finally convinced the scientists that they were.

The first specimen they examined in detail had a single, unicorn-like horn. It was a bit stumpy, but Dr. Currie said he considered calling the dinosaur "Pachyrhinosaurus unicornus."

But, he said, "Then we found one with three horns."

He decided against naming the dinosaur after a mythical beast, and instead chose to honour the quiet, modest teacher who had found it.

He and colleagues Darren Tanke of the Royal Tyrrell and Wann Langston Jr. of the University of Texas at Austin kept their decision as a surprise until last night.

Dr. Currie, who holds a Canada Research Chair in dinosaur paleobiology, said it is rare for an amateur to make such a significant find.

"Most of the time when you get reports from the public it ends up being something that you know. But every now and then you get something that is pretty spectacular. This is clearly a case of that."

Mr. Lakusta is no longer hunting dinosaurs. He was diagnosed as having a brain tumour 11 years ago, and after surgery he had to retire from teaching. He is proud of his role in discovering a new species.

"Sure," he said. "It's not everyone that does that sort of thing."

Pachyrhinosaurus lakustai

After years of study, Canadian paleontologists have concluded that a herd of dinosaurs discovered by a Grande Prairie, Alta., science teacher are a new species. They were rhino-sized plant-eaters with distinctive facial horns.

SOURCE: PIPESTONE CREEK DINOSAUR PROJECT