A new meat-eating dinosaur, Variraptor (vahr-ee-RAP-tor) mechinorum, has been found in the south of France (near Marseilles). This late Cretaceous period dinosaur was about 5-6 feet (1.5-1.8 metres) long and weighed roughly 100 pounds (50 kg), approximately the size of a person.

Variraptor was bipedal (walked on two legs), had a long tail, short powerful arms, and sharp teeth and claws. Scientists speculate that Variraptor may have been a scavenger

.Variraptor was discovered in 1998 by two amateur paleontologists, Patrick and Annie Mechin, near Fox-Amphoux, in the Var (hence the name of this raptor). Details of this find were published in the European Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology.

Variraptor lived during the late Cretaceous period, about 70 million years ago, toward the end of the Mesozoic Era.

Variraptor was a Saurischian dinosaur, the order of lizard-hipped dinosaurs. It was a theropod, a coelurosaur, and a dromaeosaurid (the smartest dinosaurs, which included Velociraptor, Deinonychus, Hulsanpes, Dromaeosaurus, Utahraptor, and others).