The Bengal Cat

Tuesday 24th July 2018

This cat breed come in a range of colours, from deep browns to Snowy white, and every cat has either the rosette or the striped pattern.
The goal of the breed was to combine the coat of the Asian Leopard with the domestic temperament of the house cat. This breed is a long muscular medium/large sized cat with a large head and muzzle as well as high cheekbones and rounded ears. The best companion cats are at least four times removed from the Asian leopard and are wild only in looks, not personality.

The Bengal cat is a hybrid originally created in the 1970's when amateur breeder, Jean Sugden received cats from Dr Centerwall, that had been bred for genetic testing. Meanwhile, Dr Centerwall of Loyola University had been testing Asian leopards for their immunity to feral leukemia, a retrovirus that is spread through infected saliva or nasal solutions. He bred them to domestic shorthair cats for the best results.

It stands out as a breed because it is one of the few successful pairings of a wild cat species and a domestic cat breed. Dr Centerwall bred the Asian leopard to a domestic cat, and after the study was over, rather than destroying these cats, the doctor left the cats at Ms Sugden's home. Sugden chose to take only the cats with desired spotting patterns and a domestic temperament. Over the years, Bengal enthusiasts bred their cats with the cats of other Bengal breeders, and a careful record of genetics helped to prevent inbreeding. This resulted in cats with longer coats, and darker or lighter patterns.

Charcoal Bengal

Ms Sugden was warned the cats might be infertile, but this proved untrue for the female hybrids. She mated a street cat with her hybrid females in the 1980's leading to the name Bengal cat. It was named because the feral cat was from the New Delhi Zoo in India. The first three generations from the original pairing between a domestic cat and an Asian Leopard are known as foundation breeds. These are the models on which the Bengal cat is based. By the fourth generation, it was found that Bengal cats could mate with one another. The Asian leopard and the domestic cat produced this unique and still quite exclusive species which has caught the imagination of cat fanciers around the world.

Blue Bengal

The most common colour is Brown Spotted AKA BST, or the leopard pattern, which encompasses a wide range of colours. the spots can be black, brown, chocolate or cinnamon and contrast with the background colour. Seal sepia, seal lynx and seal mink are colour patterns that are referred to as Snow Bengals, and they can cost upwards of NZ $1200. The most recent accepted colour is silver, with black spots on a dove grey background. Occasionally Blues and Charcoals are found, however, these are not accepted
within the breed standards. They are quite beautiful though. The melanistic Bengal must have both parents with the recessive gene for a melanistic cat to appear in a litter. Not all black, the pattern is actually black on black, and the cloudy pattern turns to solid black as the cat matures. This colour type is noted for having unusually silky and shiny coats.