Dino card No. 1876 of 2,027

Variraptor

Say it: VARR-i-rap-tor

Name means: “Var thief”1

Ate: MeatRaptorsLate Cretaceous

Variraptor was a small, fast meat-eating dinosaur that lived in what is now France. It was a dromaeosaur, a cousin of Velociraptor, and probably hunted with sharp claws on its feet and hands.1

Lived

84 to 66 million years ago3

Late Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Grès à Reptiles Formation, near Fox-Amphoux, Provence, southern France1

Food

Meat2

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

cool stuff

Fun facts

Variraptor was named after the Var River in southern France, plus the Latin word for thief.1

Its fossils were discovered by amateur paleontologists Patrick Méchin and Annie Méchin-Salessy between 1992 and 1995.1

The type specimens include a back vertebra, a sacrum (fused hip vertebrae), and a hip bone (ilium).1

Some scientists think Variraptor might be a chimaera, meaning its fossils could belong to more than one kind of dinosaur.1

A right upper arm bone (humerus) has a large deltopectoral crest, which suggests strong arm muscles for grabbing prey.1

Variraptor lived about 70 million years ago, during the Campanian and Maastrichtian stages of the Late Cretaceous.1

AI-made picture of Variraptor — An AI-made picture of how Variraptor might have looked, made by a computer from what scientists know. It is a guess: the real animal may have looked different, and nobody knows its true colours.

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Myth buster

Myth: Variraptor is definitely a valid dinosaur species.

Truth: Many scientists consider Variraptor a nomen dubium (doubtful name) because its incomplete fossils may not be unique enough to tell it apart from other dinosaurs.1

For dino experts

Scientific name: Variraptor
Named by: Le Loeuff and Buffetaut 19983
Group: Raptors
Family / clade: Dromaeosauridae3
Classification: Theropoda > Dromaeosauridae3
Age of the rocks: 84 to 66 million years (Campanian / Maastrichtian)3
Rock formations: Grès à Reptiles, Marnes Rouges Inférieures3
Countries: France3
Fossil records: 3 in the Paleobiology Database3
Discovery: Variraptor was named in 1998 by French paleontologists Jean Le Loeuff and Eric Buffetaut, based on fossils found by Patrick and Annie Méchin in southern France.1
Still debated: Scientists are not sure if Variraptor is a valid genus or if its fossils actually belong to more than one dinosaur species.1

Where the facts come from

Variraptor (en.wikipedia.org)
PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
Variraptor in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.

Every fact on this page has a number that points to its source. If we got something wrong, sorry, we are dino fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.

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