At Katuja, we are a registered breeding cattery with the NSW Cat Fanciers and are dedicated to breeding healthy, happy and loving purebred Bengal Cats. Our aim is to further develop the majestic "Snow Leopard", with an emphasis on high quality, well contrast & glittered coats together with Dramatic Rosetting and outstanding Bengal Characteristics.
The Bengal History
We owe the development of the Bengal breed to Jean Sugden Mill who began in 1963, crossing a small Asian Leopard Cat to a domestic cat, in an attempt to create a feline companion with an "Exotic" look but with a domestic temperament. During 1970 and after four to five generation Bengal to Bengal breedings the breed was recognized for championship competition by most international Cat Associations throughout the world.
Developing the Snows
During the early years, kittens would appear in litters that had blue eyes and were totally white in colour only to develop their spotting or marble pattern as they grew older, this white colour Bengal was the first type of Snow Bengal and is know as the "Seal Lynx Bengal". The Seal Lynx Bengal has the colour point gene found in the Siamese gene pool and therefore many domestic cats in the "Original" first 4 to 5 breedings carried this recessive colour point gene.
In 1990, Gene Johnson bred the first Seal Mink Male "Kotton Pickin" from mating "Gogees Warnhalk" Brown Spotted Tabby to a brown Burmese "Little Boogar" and therefore introduced the Burmese gene into the Bengal breed gene pool, and so began the "Seal Mink Snows" and the "Seal Sepia Snows".
Lynx, Minks and Sepia are infact genetically different from each other, and therefore have their own separate class or division within the Bengal breed. The Mink has to inherit a copy of both the seal lynx and the seal sepia genes. The Sepia inherits two copies of the Burmese gene, while the Lynx, of course, inherits two copies of the Siamese colour point gene.
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