The Brown Spotted Bengal is the most common and closest to the Asian Leopard Cat in appearance with it's striking spotted coat. There are many variations allowed in ground colour, however a great degree of rufinism yielding a yellow, buff, tan, golden, or orange ground colour is preferred. Contrast between background colour and spots should be extreme with a clear unticked pelt. Bellies are always spotted with a black tail tip.
Some cats have a translucent glittering effect on their coats. This is called Glittering and gives the cat it's shimmering, golden appearance in certain lights. Not all Bengal's carry this gene, and although considered very attractive in appearance on a Bengal, it is not mentioned in the breed standard, and thus not mandatory.
The Marble Bengal has a glorious swirled or marbled pattern. This is the effect of the introduction of the Tabby gene into the Bengal breeding program. Each kitten is unique in its colour with several colours and shades mixed together. There should be no circular motion to the shapes at all. Instead, there should be a horizontal, flowing feel to the alignment.
There should also be at least three colours to the patterns, a light base colour, a medium colour forming the shapes, and a much darker outlining around each of the shapes. Marble kittens can sometimes show two colours at birth with the third colour developing in adulthood. Just imagine stained glass with dark outlining and this is the same effect created in the Marble Bengal.
The Brown Marble Bengal can also be glittered. They can also show rosetting on their hindquarters or shoulders, but their bellies must be spotted like the Brown Spotted Bengal with a black tail tip.
The three main types of Snow Bengal's are: Seal Lynx Point Snow Bengal's, Seal Sepia Snow Bengal's and Seal Mink Snow Bengal's. All snows come in spot and marble pattern. They all carry a version of the albinoi gene that is commonly found in other species to produce white features with pink eyes. However, snow Bengal's do not have pink eyes, which is like leucistic animals, who have albino whiting traits and normally colored eyes. All Bengal's are born with blue eyes, but the seal lynx point is special, in that it will always have blue eyes.
- The Seal Lynx Point Snow Bengal carries the recessive colorpoint gene that comes from the Siamese cat. It is born with striking blue eyes, that they will have even as an adult. At birth, it's feet are pink and there seems to be no underlying spot or marbling pattern. As the cat grows, the feet darken to a rosy brown or black color and the spots or marbling pattern, become faintly visible and then darker and more contrasted. Hints of the cats coat pattern can be seen as early as week one. The pattern usually begins to show up in the hot spots or extremities of the cat first. It's final background color is somewhere between white and ivory and the overall pattern should be as dark as the point color. All Seal Lynx Point Snow Bengal's have bright blue eyes. They are unique among bengal's for this.
The Seal Sepia Snow Bengal carries a burmese gene, rather than the colorpoint gene, and it is genetically different from the lynx point. It is born sepia colored with visible pattern developing in shades of even darker seal sepia to dark seal sepia with ivory whiskers and chin coloring. Although it's pattern can be evident when it is born, it may not be too dark and it usually becomes more contrasted as it gets older. It is considered the darkest of the snow bengal's. It's eyes turn gold/amber or gold/green. It is preferred to have more depth and richness to the eye color. Their paw pads are brown, but can have some rosey undertones. The tip of the tail is dark sepia brown.
- The Seal Mink Snow Bengal carries both the sepia's burmese gene and the lynx point's colorpoint gene. It is born light ivory color with visible pattern developing in medium brown shades of seal mink on an ivory background, with ivory whiskers and chin coloring. It's eyes are green/aqua, green or green/gold.
The Silver Bengal is not actually a new colour that has been introduced; it is reached by working with the I Gene (Inhibitor Gene), which is a dominant gene that if present suppresses the yellow pigment production in full color cats Silver Bengal's have a silvery-white background with grey to inky black markings. Ideally there is no hint of brown. This is an exciting “new” color for breeders; it has been approved for Championship status beginning May 1, 2004. There are limited ‘Silver Bengal’ genetics to work with and still so much being perfected in the silvers!
What is a BLUE Bengal? The color gene responsible for producing a "blue" Bengal cat is known as a recessive gene; that is, it may be carried by any color and pattern type of Bengal Cat, without the blue gene necessarily showing up in the cat. When a blue male Bengal is bred to a blue female Bengal, all the resulting kittens will be blues. However, it is quite possible for two non-blue Bengal's to mate and, if both recessively carry this color gene, produce some blue kittens in their resulting litter, or in future generations if the gene continues to be recessively carried by the offspring.At this time, the blue Bengal is not a recognized color within the major cat associations , blues are able to be shown in the NBC (New Breed Color) divisions. Interestingly, breeders who have had quite a bit of experience with the blue Bengal's have found that when dealing with a recessive gene such as the blue color gene, often other recessive genes come in to play in the same kitten, such as desirable large spots in the spotted pattern, the "glitter" gene, which also produces some of the softest and most pelted coats in the Bengal cat. This is one reason why in some areas, blue Bengal's are gaining rapidly in popularity, and some breeders are choosing to work specifically with the blue Bengal's to try to get this color recognized within the official Bengal breed standard in its own color class and division.
To obtain this beautiful Bengal colouring you need a Blue carrying snow ( ours is the sire Malakai ) and a Snow carrying Blue ( ours is the Dam Crystal ). This Bengal colour which is very rare, can be both spot and marble. We have not yet found a breeder who has a breeding pair of blue lynx bengal's as we would love to see the outcome from this mating.