Bengal Cat Colourisations

The Silver Bengal is a striking cat that can range in varying shades and intensitys, generally speaking they range from a light to dark steel grey colour and can have more frosty tones amongst inky black contrasted markings. Silver in cats is technically a lack of colour also known as the inhibitor gene.
Eye colour in Silver cats can be Green, Gold or Blue to Aqua with Blue to Aqua only being in Silver Snows.

The Silver cat can come in different variations such as Silver Snows,Silver Solids (smoke) and Silver Blue. Pure Silvers are most common .
Patterns can be Spotted or rosetted (larger opened up spotting) marbled or charcoal in variation.

We love a Brown Bengal and its where we first began. The Brown Bengal can be in varying shades and intensitys they can range from a cool darker brown to a rufous Red. The colour of the brown coat can change over time causing tones to deepen and markings to “pop out” as they mature overall giving a well contrasted coat.
Brown Bengals can be Spotted or marbled in pattern (rosetted is the term for more opened up spots) they can also be in Charcoal. Eye colour is typically green but can also be gold or copper.
The brown bengal cat is stunning and therfore a popular choice.

The Snow Bengal Cat comes in three main recognisable colours Snow Lynx,Snow Mink and Snow Sepia.
These variations range between creamy and ivory tone base colours with markings varying from a tan, grey or brown dependant on the genetics of the Snow bengal in question.
Every main Snow colour in addition can come in charcoal, blue or solid (melanistic).
The Snow bengal often gets dubbed a miniature snow leopard and therefore can be highly desired. Snow Lynx is born the lightest of the three snow colours but darken over time, it is the hardest colour to achieve good contrast. Snow Lynx always have blue eyes. The snow Lynx gene (cs) has been passed from a siamese outcrossing, a solid snow Lynx will have darker siamese points on their faces,tail,ears and feet.

The Charcoal Bengal can come in Brown, Silver,Snow and Blue. In each colour the Charcoal which is actually more so a pattern than a colour darkens the standard colour of the bengal.

The Charcoal bengal cat is often dubbed “Zorro” because of their dark face mask,white spectacles and dark caping on their backs, not every Charcoal bengal has the Cape though so the Cape cannot be used to determine if a bengal is Charcoal. The spots or rosetting is usually filled in, eye colour can be green, gold, copper, or Aqua/Blue if its a snow bengal.

The Charcoal Bengals genetics are made up from one copy of the Ancestors of the Bengal, The Asian Leopard Cat (Apb) and one copy from the non agouti gene (a) thus making a Charcoal bengal (Apb/a)

The two colour Bengals that can be registered but cannot yet enter TICA shows are the Blue and the Melanistic bengal.

The Blue Bengal (d/d) also known as the dilute gene is very light and soft in contrast with a background colour of pale blue grey to dark slate grey with or without peach tones. Markings are medium to dark blue. Blue Bengals can have green, gold or Blue eyes if it’s a blue snow. Blue Bengals can be in snow or silver also.

The Melanistic bengal (a/a) is a solid version of either Brown, Silver (known as Silver Smoke) Snow or Blue. The solid black Bengal resembles a panther with its ghost markings, the markings can appear differently in different lights. The eye colour of a melanistic Bengal can be Green, Copper or Blue if it is a Snow Bengal. We personally love melanistic Bengals and hope that one day it will be a TICA show freindly colour.