Hardly anyone will undertake to dispute the fact that cats are the most common pets. The history of taming a cat and transforming it from a predator into a cute pet goes back several millennia. The classification of cats according to their external characteristics and their division into breeds began in the second half of the 19th century.
The breed is considered to be a fairly large group of domestic animals with a combination of inherited traits. In cats, this is the body type and color. Breed standards are approved by international felinological organizations. In pedigree cats four generations of ancestors are indicated.
The Bengal cat is a very young breed of domestic cat. It was officially registered in 1983. The author of the breed is considered to be an American scientist, geneticist JEAN SUGDEN MILL. In 1961, while on a business trip in southeast Asia, she was faced with the mass extermination of a local species – the Asian leopard cat, which was destroyed by poachers because of its beautiful spotted coat. Cubs orphans after the murder of their mothers were sold in markets as domestic kittens. Here Jean acquired her first kitten – a cat “Malaysia”, who, upon reaching puberty from a male black domestic cat, gave birth to a kitten that retained the exotic color of its mother. The kitten-female was named Keene-Keene. This female became the first hybrid born from the Asian leopard cat. She is first generation – Bengal F1.
Experts at Cornell University, whom Jean contacted on the fact of the birth of such an unusual offspring, suggested that Keane Keane would be sterile and could not have offspring. But after puberty, the hybrid girl still gave birth to two kittens – a spotted male and a black female. The father of these kittens was the same cat – Keen Keene. There were two kittens – a black cat and a leopard cat, which died before reaching puberty.
Due to personal circumstances, Jean was forced to stop the experiment, which she was able to resume only in 1980. Together with geneticist Willard Centerwall of the University of California, Jean crosses female Asian leopard cats with domestic short-haired cats of brown spotted color. Through these crosses, Jean selects 8 hybrid females of the first generation into her cattery for the program of obtaining a Bengal cat – “Millwood”. All F1 males were found to be sterile. Therefore, Jean selected suitable cats from Los Angeles shelters for these cats. On one of her travels to India in 1982, Jean saw a domestic red-colored cat with dark brown rosettes on its fur at the Delhi Zoo. He was kept in a rhino enclosure. Jean took this male cat to the United States, where he received the nickname Millwood Tory of Delhi. Jean registered Millwood Tory of Delhi as an Egyptian Mau. Today the Tory genes can be traced in many lineages of modern Bengals.
In 1983, Jean Mill managed to officially register her cats in TICA (“The International Cat Association”). In 1985 she first showed the Bengal cat at a cat show in the class of new breeds and varieties. The breed gets its name from the Latin name for its wild ancestor, Felis Bengalensis (Asian leopard cat). In 1991 the new breed took part in the TICA (“The International Cat Association”) championship.
For the first time in Russia a Bengal cat was brought to an exhibition in 1997 from France. The founder of the Russian lines of Bengal cats was a cat named Bambi (Bengalhut Bambi), which was brought to Russia from the USA in the same 1997. Jane Mill, in turn, chose a pair of Bengals from her cattery and exported them to Russia – Millwood Tarzan and Millwood Sabrina.
At the moment, the Bengal breed is recognized by all felinological organizations in the world. You have the opportunity to become the owner of this unique breed. In our cattery you will find the Bengal kitten of your dreams.
