Ivana and Dexter, her Bengal cat, piqued my kitty care’s interest in finding out about Bengal Cats…
The Bengal breed originated from a cross between a domestic cat and the shy, wild Asian Leopard Cat.

Asian Leopard Cat

This species of small wild cat, comparable to the Ocelot or Margay, weighs about 10-15 pounds.
Early History (from Wikipedia)
The earliest mention of an ALC/domestic cross was in 1889, when Harrison Weir wrote in Our Cats and All About Them. However in 1927, Mr Boden-Kloss wrote to the magazine Cat Gossip regarding hybrids between wild and domestic cats in Malaya:
“I have never heard of hybrids between bengalensis (the Leopard Cat) and domestic cats. One of the wild tribes of the Malay Peninsula has domesticated cats, and I have seen the woman suckling bengalensis kittens, but I do not know whether the latter survive and breed with the others!”
The earliest mention of a confirmed ALC/domestic cross was in 1934 in a Belgian scientific journal, and in 1941, a Japanese cat publication printed an article about one that was kept as a pet. Jean Mill (née Sugden), the person who was later a great influence of the development of the modern Bengal breed, submitted a term paper for her genetics class at UC Davis on the subject of crossbreeding cats in 1946.

article by Jean Mill, in CAT FANCY February 1991

A Little History
In 1963 I deliberately crossed leopard cats with domestic cats for several important reasons. At that time, wild cats were being exploited for the fur market.

 

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