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Bengal (cat)
Encyclopedia
The Bengal is a relatively new hybrid
breed of cat
, formed by the cross of a domestic feline and an Asian Leopard Cat ("ALC").
Bengal cats have "wild-looking" markings, such as large spots, rosettes, and a light/white belly, and a body structure reminiscent of the Asian Leopard Cat
(Prionailurus bengalensis bengalensis). The Bengal cat has a desirable "wild" appearance with a gentle domestic cat temperament, provided it is separated by at least three generations from the original crossing between a domestic feline and an ALC.
The name Bengal cat was derived from the taxonomic name of the Asian Leopard Cat (P. b. bengalensis), and not from the more distantly related Bengal tiger
.
However in 1927, Mr Boden-Kloss wrote to the magazine "Cat Gossip" regarding hybrids between wild and domestic cats in Malaya:
The earliest mention of a confirmed ALC/domestic cross was in 1934 in a Belgian scientific journal, and in 1941 a Japanese cat publication printed an article about one that was kept as a pet. Jean Mill (née Sugden), the person who was later a great influence of the development of the modern Bengal breed, submitted a term paper for her genetics class at UC Davis on the subject of cross breeding cats in 1946.
The 1960s was a period when many well known breeders, including Jean Sugden, produced ALC/domestic crosses, but records indicate that none of them took it past the F2 stage. Several zoos in Europe also produced a number of F1
ALC crosses. During this period there was an epidemic of feline leukemia virus
and it became known that many wild cats seemed to have a natural immunity to the disease. As a result of this, Loyola University began a research program in the 1970s to investigate if this natural immunity could be bred in or replicated.
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s there was a great deal of activity with hybrids, but there was no significant effort to create an actual breed from them. A number of Cat clubs formed that oriented on hybrids and a few oriented specifically on something William Engler, a member of the Long Island Ocelot Club and a breeder, called a Bengal.
Club newsletters were published, detailing the production of Bengals and Safaris (a domestic cat/Geoffroy's Cat
cross), and members of these clubs bred some second and third generation Bengals. These were registered with the American Cat Fanciers Association (A.C.F.A.) in 1977 as experimental and were shown at several A.C.F.A. cat shows throughout the 1970s.
Around this time, Jean Mill (née Sugden) began to renew her breeding efforts.
She contacted Dr. Willard Centerwall in Riverside who had produced a number of F1s
using domestic tabbies at Loma Linda University
for his Centerwall project into Feline Leukemia. Once the F1s
had donated blood samples for his research, he needed homes for them. He gave Jean 4 hybrids. She later received another 5 hybrids from another source, but from the same Centerwall project.
Mill did not use local domestics to create her first Bengals. She felt the ALC was a genetically superior animal and wished to avoid weakening this element. Around 1982, Mill and her husband made a trip to India where a zoo curator showed them a feral Indian Mau. This is how the famous rosetted domestic called "Millwood Tory of Delhi" came to be found in virtually all Bengal pedigrees.
Greg and Elizabeth Kent were also early breeders, who developed their own line of Bengals using ALCs and Egyptian Maus. This was a very successful line and many modern Bengals will find it in their pedigree.
Jean Mill and the Kents worked hard to popularize the breed, and when the public saw the result of their work, word spread quickly. As the number of breeders and owners grew, it led to the formation of T.I.C.A.'s Bengal Breed Section. T.I.C.A. adopted the first written breed standard in 1986 and the first Bengal Bulletin was published in Nov/Dec 1988.
Shortly after The International Bengal Cat Society (T.I.B.C.S.), the Bengal Breeders Alliance (B.B.A.) and the Authentic Bengal Cat League (A.B.C.L.) were formed. These organizations exist to promote good breeding practices, discourage unscrupulous breeders, and attempt to educate people about the Bengal breed.
Although it has become a popular breed, with over 60,000 cats registered with T.I.C.A., not all cat registries
accept them - in particular the Cat Fanciers' Association
, one of the largest cat registries in the world, does not accept any hybrids.
There are currently several varieties of domestic cat being developed from the Bengal:
The Bengal cat is usually either classed as a brown-spotted or snow-spotted (although there are more colours, brown and snow are the only colours of Bengal that the Governing Council of the Cat Fancy (GCCF) recognise. Within brown Bengals, there are either marble or spotted markings. Snow Bengals are also either marble or spotted but are also divided into blue-eyed or AOC (Any Other Colour) eyes.
The International Cat Association (TICA) recognizes several Bengal colours (brown, seal lynx point, mink, sepia, silver) and patterns (spotted and marbled) for competition. In the New Traits class, other colours may be shown, as well as longhairs.
of breeding (F1–F3) are usually reserved for breeding purposes or the specialty pet home environment.
Felid hybrid
There are a number of hybrids between various felid species. This article deals with hybrids between the smaller felid species and those between smaller felids and Panthera species. For hybrids between two Panthera species see Panthera hybrid.-Servical/caraval:A servical is a cross between a...
breed of cat
Cat
The cat , also known as the domestic cat or housecat to distinguish it from other felids and felines, is a small, usually furry, domesticated, carnivorous mammal that is valued by humans for its companionship and for its ability to hunt vermin and household pests...
, formed by the cross of a domestic feline and an Asian Leopard Cat ("ALC").
Bengal cats have "wild-looking" markings, such as large spots, rosettes, and a light/white belly, and a body structure reminiscent of the Asian Leopard Cat
Leopard Cat
The leopard cat is a small wild cat of South and East Asia. Since 2002 it has been listed as Least Concern by IUCN as it is widely distributed but threatened by habitat loss and hunting in parts of its range...
(Prionailurus bengalensis bengalensis). The Bengal cat has a desirable "wild" appearance with a gentle domestic cat temperament, provided it is separated by at least three generations from the original crossing between a domestic feline and an ALC.
The name Bengal cat was derived from the taxonomic name of the Asian Leopard Cat (P. b. bengalensis), and not from the more distantly related Bengal tiger
Bengal Tiger
The Bengal tiger is a tiger subspecies native to the Indian subcontinent that in 2010 has been classified as endangered by IUCN...
.
History
The earliest mention of an ALC/domestic cross was in 1889, when Harrison Weir wrote in "Our Cats and All About Them" :- There is a rich-coloured brown tabby hybrid to be seen at the Zoological Society Gardens in Regent's Park, between the wild cat of Bengal and a tabby she-cat. It is handsome, but very wild. These hybrids, I am told, will breed again with tame variety, or with others.
However in 1927, Mr Boden-Kloss wrote to the magazine "Cat Gossip" regarding hybrids between wild and domestic cats in Malaya:
- I have never heard of hybrids between bengalensis (the Leopard Cat) and domestic cats. One of the wild tribes of the Malay Peninsula has domesticated cats, and I have seen the woman suckling bengalensis kittens, but I do not know whether the latter survive and breed with the others!
The earliest mention of a confirmed ALC/domestic cross was in 1934 in a Belgian scientific journal, and in 1941 a Japanese cat publication printed an article about one that was kept as a pet. Jean Mill (née Sugden), the person who was later a great influence of the development of the modern Bengal breed, submitted a term paper for her genetics class at UC Davis on the subject of cross breeding cats in 1946.
F1 hybrid
F1 hybrid is a term used in genetics and selective breeding. F1 stands for Filial 1, the first filial generation seeds/plants or animal offspring resulting from a cross mating of distinctly different parental types....
ALC crosses. During this period there was an epidemic of feline leukemia virus
Feline leukemia virus
Feline leukemia virus is a retrovirus that infects cats. FeLV can be transmitted between infected cats when the transfer of saliva or nasal secretions is involved. If not defeated by the animal’s immune system, the virus can be lethal...
and it became known that many wild cats seemed to have a natural immunity to the disease. As a result of this, Loyola University began a research program in the 1970s to investigate if this natural immunity could be bred in or replicated.
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s there was a great deal of activity with hybrids, but there was no significant effort to create an actual breed from them. A number of Cat clubs formed that oriented on hybrids and a few oriented specifically on something William Engler, a member of the Long Island Ocelot Club and a breeder, called a Bengal.
Club newsletters were published, detailing the production of Bengals and Safaris (a domestic cat/Geoffroy's Cat
Geoffroy's Cat
Geoffroy's Cat is a wild cat in the southern and central regions of South America. It is about the size of a domestic cat. While the species is relatively common in many areas, it is considered to be "Near Threatened" by IUCN because of concern over land-use changes in the regions where it lives...
cross), and members of these clubs bred some second and third generation Bengals. These were registered with the American Cat Fanciers Association (A.C.F.A.) in 1977 as experimental and were shown at several A.C.F.A. cat shows throughout the 1970s.
Around this time, Jean Mill (née Sugden) began to renew her breeding efforts.
..I deliberately crossed leopard cats with domestic cats for several important reasons. At that time, wild cats were being exploited for the fur market. Nursing female leopard cats defending their nests were shot for their pelts, and the cubs were shipped off to pet stores worldwide. Unsuspecting cat lovers bought them, unaware of the danger, their unpleasant elimination habits and the unsuitability of keeping wild cats as pets.
Most of the wild kittens from this era ended up in zoos or escaped onto city streets. I hoped that by putting a leopard coat on a domestic cat, the pet trade could be safely satisfied. If fashionable women could be dissuaded from wearing furs that look like friends' pets, the diminished demand would result in less poaching of wild species.
She contacted Dr. Willard Centerwall in Riverside who had produced a number of F1s
F1 hybrid
F1 hybrid is a term used in genetics and selective breeding. F1 stands for Filial 1, the first filial generation seeds/plants or animal offspring resulting from a cross mating of distinctly different parental types....
using domestic tabbies at Loma Linda University
Loma Linda University
Loma Linda University is a Seventh-day Adventist coeducational health sciences university located in Loma Linda, California, United States. The University comprises eight schools and the Faculty of Graduate Studies...
for his Centerwall project into Feline Leukemia. Once the F1s
F1 hybrid
F1 hybrid is a term used in genetics and selective breeding. F1 stands for Filial 1, the first filial generation seeds/plants or animal offspring resulting from a cross mating of distinctly different parental types....
had donated blood samples for his research, he needed homes for them. He gave Jean 4 hybrids. She later received another 5 hybrids from another source, but from the same Centerwall project.
Mill did not use local domestics to create her first Bengals. She felt the ALC was a genetically superior animal and wished to avoid weakening this element. Around 1982, Mill and her husband made a trip to India where a zoo curator showed them a feral Indian Mau. This is how the famous rosetted domestic called "Millwood Tory of Delhi" came to be found in virtually all Bengal pedigrees.
Jean Mill and the Kents worked hard to popularize the breed, and when the public saw the result of their work, word spread quickly. As the number of breeders and owners grew, it led to the formation of T.I.C.A.'s Bengal Breed Section. T.I.C.A. adopted the first written breed standard in 1986 and the first Bengal Bulletin was published in Nov/Dec 1988.
Shortly after The International Bengal Cat Society (T.I.B.C.S.), the Bengal Breeders Alliance (B.B.A.) and the Authentic Bengal Cat League (A.B.C.L.) were formed. These organizations exist to promote good breeding practices, discourage unscrupulous breeders, and attempt to educate people about the Bengal breed.
Although it has become a popular breed, with over 60,000 cats registered with T.I.C.A., not all cat registries
Cat registry
A cat registry is an organisation that registers cats for exhibition and breeding purposes. A cat registry stores the pedigrees of cats, prefixes or affixes of catteries, studbooks , breed descriptions and the standards of points for those breeds; lists of judges qualified to judge at shows run...
accept them - in particular the Cat Fanciers' Association
Cat Fanciers' Association
The Cat Fanciers' Association was established in the United States in 1906 and is the world's largest registry of pedigreed cats and the predominant pedigreed cat registering association in North America...
, one of the largest cat registries in the world, does not accept any hybrids.
New developments
- The British government agency, DEFRADepartment for Environment, Food and Rural AffairsThe Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is the government department responsible for environmental protection, food production and standards, agriculture, fisheries and rural communities in the United Kingdom...
, has proposed revising regulations under the Dangerous Wild Animals Act 1976Dangerous Wild Animals Act 1976The Dangerous Wild Animals Act of 1976 is a law of the United Kingdom that was originally enacted to deal with the increasing fashion in the late 1960s and early 1970s of people keeping interesting pets which were often from the more dangerous species, as well as hybrids between wild and domestic...
to remove licensing requirements for keeping of Bengal cats in the United KingdomUnited KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
.
There are currently several varieties of domestic cat being developed from the Bengal:
- The Serengeti catSerengeti catThe Serengeti cat was first developed by crossing a Bengal cat and an Oriental Shorthair cat. Recognized and registered by The International Cat Association, no other first generation crosses can be registered as Serengeti . From the Bengal / Oriental cross comes your first foundation Serengeti...
: developed from crosses with Oriental ShorthairOriental ShorthairThe Siamese cat was imported to Britain from Siam in the later half of the 1800s. According to reports, both pointed and solid colors were imported. The gene that causes the color to be restricted to the points is a recessive gene, therefore the general population of the cats of Siam were largely...
or SiameseSiamese (cat)The Siamese is one of the first distinctly recognized breeds of Oriental cat. The origins of the breed are unknown, but it is believed to be from Thailand. In Thailand, where they are one of several native breeds, they are called Wichian Mat...
with the aim to produce a domestic cat mimicking the appearance of an African ServalServalThe serval , Leptailurus serval or Caracal serval, known in Afrikaans as Tierboskat, "tiger-forest-cat", is a medium-sized African wild cat. DNA studies have shown that the serval is closely related to the African golden cat and the caracal...
, without actually incorporating Serval genes by hybridization. - The SavannahSavannah (cat)The Savannah is a domestic hybrid cat breed. It is a cross between a serval and a domestic cat. -History:...
, which does include serval genes. - The ToygerToygerThe toyger is a breed of cat, the result of breeding domestic shorthaired tabbies to make them resemble a "toy tiger," as its striped coat is reminiscent of the tiger's. The breed's creator, Judy Sudgen, has stated that the breed was developed in order to inspire people to care about the...
: developed from crosses with domestic cats with the aim to produce a striped "toy TigerTigerThe tiger is the largest cat species, reaching a total body length of up to and weighing up to . Their most recognizable feature is a pattern of dark vertical stripes on reddish-orange fur with lighter underparts...
". - The CheetohCheetoh-Origin:The Cheetoh cat breed is derived from crossings between specific Bengal cat and Ocicat bloodlines. Being a new breed, it is rare.-Appearance:...
: an attempt to blend two existing domestic breeds of spotted cats with defined characteristics (Bengal and Ocicat), into a third breed.
Appearance
Bengal cats have "wild-looking" markings, such as large spots, rosettes, and a light/white belly, and a body structure reminiscent of the Leopard Cat. The Bengal's rosetted spots occur only on the back and sides, with stripes elsewhere. The breed typically also features "mascara" (horizontal striping alongside the eyes), and foreleg striping.The Bengal cat is usually either classed as a brown-spotted or snow-spotted (although there are more colours, brown and snow are the only colours of Bengal that the Governing Council of the Cat Fancy (GCCF) recognise. Within brown Bengals, there are either marble or spotted markings. Snow Bengals are also either marble or spotted but are also divided into blue-eyed or AOC (Any Other Colour) eyes.
The International Cat Association (TICA) recognizes several Bengal colours (brown, seal lynx point, mink, sepia, silver) and patterns (spotted and marbled) for competition. In the New Traits class, other colours may be shown, as well as longhairs.
Temperament
After three generations from the original crossing, the breed usually acquires a gentle domestic cat temperament; however, for the typical pet owner, a Bengal cat kept as a pet should be at least four generations (F4) removed from the Leopard Cat. The so-called "foundation cats" from the first three filial generationsF1 hybrid
F1 hybrid is a term used in genetics and selective breeding. F1 stands for Filial 1, the first filial generation seeds/plants or animal offspring resulting from a cross mating of distinctly different parental types....
of breeding (F1–F3) are usually reserved for breeding purposes or the specialty pet home environment.