diff --git a/blxGff3Parser.c b/blxGff3Parser.c
index 16ea2e705c08242b6860f6c8d501b55159301475..f9789de9e41127d64521024499a0dd38ca06dcf1 100644
--- a/blxGff3Parser.c
+++ b/blxGff3Parser.c
@@ -601,6 +601,10 @@ static void parseTagDataPair(char *text,
         {
           gffData->sequence = g_strdup(tokens[1]);
         }
+      else if (!strcmp(tokens[0], "variant_sequence"))
+        {
+          gffData->sequence = g_strdup(tokens[1]);
+        }
       else if (!strcmp(tokens[0], "url"))
         {
           gffData->url = g_strdup(tokens[1]);