The spots of a Bengal cat are inspired by many different wild cats throughout the world and Bengals have coat patterns unlike anything previously seen on a domestic cat. In the wild these spots have evolved over thousands of years as these cats have adapted to their surroundings. The purpose of these markings is to act as camouflage so that the wild cat remains hidden in vegetation, shadow and shade, allowing them to hunt much more successfully by remaining undetected. Their complicated patterns also help to confuse the night vision of their prey.

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The marble pattern is a blotchy, swirly pattern of two of more colours. There are four types of marble pattern; reduced horizontal flow, horizontal flow, chaos pattern and sheeted marble patterns. There must be a strong contrast between the ground (background) colour and the marbling. This pattern develops slowly and kittens are born with a closed pattern. As the kitten matures, the pattern beautifully transforms and can take up to two years to be seen in full glory. Marble is a recessive gene, so a Bengal kitten must inherit one copy of this gene from each parent to be marble. The first marble kitten was produced by Jean Mill in 1987 and was named Millwood Painted Desert. Although Jean Mill had not intended to include anything but spots in her standard, Painted Desert was very popular with both judges and the general public. This led to marbles being included in the breed standard. It is through work with the marble pattern that rosettes were able to be produced within the Bengal breed from singular spots. Thus, many breeders are very interested in working with marbles and you will see carefully chosen marble Bengals within many excellent breeding programmes. Here at Angeldust Bengals, we enjoy working with marble Bengals and have witnessed the positive impact marbles have had on our rosetted programme. We occasionally will have marble Bengal kittens available.

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