Melanistic Bengal Cat

Bengal cats are exquisite, elegant and stunningly beautiful breeds. Available in various colour and pattern variations, They make excellent family pets that are lively, playful and social cats.

Standard Colours

Bengals come in three standard colours – Brown, Silver and Snow Bengals. While all three look very distinct, they share similar body types and temperaments to their wild Asian leopard ancestors. Bengals can also have various patterns, such as spots to marbling or even an arrowhead rosette; good quality marble patterns feature random swirls and rosettes with various shades of brown in them like.

Black Bengal Kittens, or melanistic as they are known, are relatively recent developments within the breed. They resemble black panthers in many ways, with black base coats with either marbled patterns or spots that blend into their backgrounds almost invisibly.

Although sometimes hard to locate in low light conditions, these cats can often be seen more easily when out and about in bright daylight conditions. These cats will possess all the patina and ticking characteristics typical of spotted Bengals. Still, they will also sport ghost rosettes, barely detectable circular colour markings on their coats that only become visible under direct sunlight.

These patterns, often referred to as “ghost marks” or “ghost spots” are the result of non-agouti gene deletion. To be a melanistic Bengal cat they must be black, possess two copies of the non-agouti recessive gene and the melanin in their skin will transmit the pattern.