Bengal cat
cat breed
The Bengal cat (Prionailurus bengalensis × Felis catus) is a breed of hybrid cat created from crossbreeding an Asian leopard cat to domestic cats, especially the spotted tabby Egyptian Mau. Bengals have varying appearances. Their tabby coats range from domestic spots to hybrid rosettes, arrowhead markings, and marbling. The breed is selectively bred and pedigree registered with most of the major cat registries. The breed's name derives from the leopard cat's taxonomic name. The bengal cat is considered a medium to large breed.
Due to the recent hybridisation with their wild ancestor species, the breeding, trading, and ownership of Bengal cats is legally regulated in several countries.
Etymology
The breed's name derives from that of the Asian leopard cat (Prionailurus bengalensis), from which the Bengal cat was originally hybridised. The species epithet bengalensis is a Latin geographical adjective meaning “of Bengal”, referring to the Bengal region of South Asia.
History
The earliest mention of an Asian leopard cat × domestic cat hybrid was in 1889, when Harrison Weir wrote of them in Our Cats and All About Them.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Bengal cat” is cat breed. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Bengal and breed, not as a finished interpretation.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q42583. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1889.
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This entry incorporates text from “Bengal cat” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.