THE BENGAL CAT
Bengals are independent, confident and intelligent cats with infectious outgoing personalities. They are curious, mischievous and playful characters. They have a great affinity for water and height and their wild instincts are often displayed when at play! Bengals are sociable cats and adapt very well to life with new people and other pets.
Listed below are some of the characteristics of the Bengal:
- Medium to large sleek muscular body
- Soft glossy coat
- Colour contrast in pattern against a lighter background
- Rosetted spots
- Horizontally flowing marbling (within marbling)
- Gold tipping (glittered effect) to coat
- Broken stripes or spots on legs
- Thick and tapered tail with a very dark/black tip
- Whited undersides to the face and body
- Spotted bellies
- Small to medium rounded ears
- Slightly roman nose
- Broad muzzle with whited full whisker pads
- Large, oval and wide set eyes
- Dark 'eyeliner', 'mascara' and 'broken necklace' markings
It is the genes of a Bengal that determine the pattern, colour and type (long or short haired) of its coat. Some genes are dominant and some are recessive.
The two types of pattern belonging to the Bengal are Spotted and Marbled. Marbled is less common as the spotted gene is the dominant one.
As genes are mixed, colour variations can occur but the three recognised colour groups of the Bengal are Brown, Snow and Silver. Here brown is the dominant gene.
Another more recent colour development in Bengals is Blue which is a dilute gene. Blues unfortunately cannot yet qualify for championship status but applications for this have been made.