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The fossil of a previously unknown breed of predatory dinosaur, apparently a heavier, stockier cousin of Velociraptor, has been discovered in Romania, reported LiveScience.

A partial skeleton of the creature, which has been given the scientific name Balaur bondoc, included leg, hip, backbone, arm, hand, rib and tail bones. "Balaur" is from an archaic Romanian word for dragon, while "bondoc" means stocky. The fossil was unearthed last year by Mátyás Vremir, a geologist with the Transylvanian Museum Society.

Balaur is estimated to have lived near the end of the Cretaceous Period, between 72 million and 65 million years ago, when Romania was still part of an island archipelago, owing to higher sea levels.

Fragments of the carnivore had been found more than 10 years ago, but Zoltán Csiki, a paleontologist at the University of Bucharest, explained that until now, they didn't have any idea where to fit them.

According to researcher Mark Norell, the chairman of paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History, "It is one of the most unusual and strangest dinosaurs I've had the privilege of working on in my entire career."

The creature was about 1.8 m to 2.1m (6-7 ft) long, including the tail, and had a number of striking features, over 20 of which were not shared by its nearest relatives, which include Velociraptor and feathered dinosaurs that had been unearthed in China, suggesting that it hunted differently.

For example, it had a large claw on its big toe that could be extended, presumably to slash prey. This is in addition to the claw on its second toe, which is characteristic of the group of dinosaurs to which it belongs. Compared to its cousins, Balaur had shorter, stockier legs and feet, as well as hips that possessed enormous muscle attachment areas, indicating that it was adapted for strength rather than speed.

Moreover, its hands were atrophied, and some of the hand bones were fused together, which would have made grasping difficult. Thus, Balaur may have relied on its hind limbs to grasp and disembowel prey.

Stephen Brusatte, a graduate student at Columbia University,which is affiliated with the American Museum of Natural History, described the animal as being "very different from anything we have ever known", and said that Balaur, unlike Velociraptor, "was probably more of a kickboxer than a sprinter, and it might have been able to take down larger animals than itself, as many carnivores do today".

Norrell pointed out that, based on what researchers know about Velociraptor, the sickle claw on the second toe of each foot was used to stick into the bodies of prey animals. Whether Balaur could perform better than its relative, given its anatomical traits, could not be determined yet. "Hopefully we can find more specimens to shed light on it," he said.

The site where the bones of the predator were uncovered also yielded the fossils of several kinds of smaller, more primitive dinosaurs, such as tiny duck-billed dinosaurs and cow-sized dwarf sauropods.

The skeleton of Balaur is the first reasonably complete one of a carnivorous dinosaur that has been excavated from the area. The find was described in a report that was published on Monday, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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