Colors & Patterns
Brown
This colour has a large range of background colours with descriptive terms such as golden, cream, tawny, honey, taupe, buff, tan, beige, caramel or red. The brown Bengal will have black or deep brown spotted or marble pattern. Their eye colours are green or golden.
Silver
This colour has a background of almost white, silvery or silver in colour with inky black spotted or marble pattern. Their eye colour is green or golden.
Snow
Charcoal
This colour while believed by some to be a separate genetic
colour is also used by many as a descriptive term for the darkest range on the spectrum within the recognized colours. i.e. Charcoal Brown and Charcoal Silver.”Charcoals” have very little to no rufusing in their wild dark greyish and/or dark brownish background colour. They will have very dark (if not black) spots or marble pattern. Usually Charcoals have dark masks and in the spotted pattern a thick back stripe running the length of their body along the back, also known as a “cape”. Breeders are also now noting the charcoal colour variation in Snows and are referring to them as
“Charcoal Snows”. In the above photo album is a picture of a hybrid Jaglion that has the same dramatic feel as the charcoal Bengal.
Melanistic (Black)
This is a colour that has a black background with faint dark brown-black spotted pattern which can sometimes only be seen in natural sunlight. In the above photo album is a picture of Melanistic Jaguars for your reference.
Blue
Single-Spotting
Is used to define a pattern that has no second colour to the spot (there is only the background colour of the cat and the one spot colour).
Cluster Rosettes
Is used to define a pattern with small spots forming clusters around the second “inner” colour that is different from the background.
Paw-Print Rosettes
Is used when the rosette is open on one side and there are spots edging the second colour creating a pattern that looks like paw prints walking across the background.
Embryonic Rosettes
Is when the spot shows subtle signs of a second colour on the edges.
Doughnut Rosettes
Is used to define a rosette that is completely or almost completely outlined with a darker colour and the center is a distinctly different colour to that of the background.
Arrowhead
Tri-Colour and Quad-Colour
Describes when there are three definite colours present, the background, the marble markings and the center, like seen in a spotted doughnut rosette pattern. The same for a quad-colour pattern you will see four distinctive colours that make up the pattern and background.
Horizontal Flowing
This is used to describe when you see the marble pattern flowing from the upper shoulder along the body to the back of the cat in a horizontal fashion. This affect is much like the markings on a boa constrictor. This style of marbling is highly desired in the marble pattern.
High Acreage or Reduced Pattern
This is used to describe a pattern that has a high percentage of background colour showing behind and between the marble pattern. This has become a highly prized look and is often referred to as mimicking more closely the look of wild cats like the Margay (Leopardus wiedii) King Cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus rex) and the Marbled Cat (Pardofelis marmorata). Please refer to the above photo album of wild cats to see their sample patterns.
Chaos Pattern
Is used to describe a dramatic pattern compromised of swirls and splashes in different sizes and shapes of marbling flowing in a horizontal fashion.
Sheeted or Closed Pattern
This term is used to describe a marble pattern that has a high ratio of pattern to background colour. Sheeted marble kittens born with this high percentage of pattern can take up to two years to finish “opening up” in pattern to the “real pattern” underneath. It can be very exciting to see what is “behind” the sheeted pattern of a Bengal once the colour “matures”.
Bull's-eye
(NOT DESIRED) A circular presentation on the marble pattern with a round center of marbling inside the circle creating a literal “bulls-eye” in the pattern on the side of the cat.