Medium to large, muscular cat with a distinctive wild appearance featuring spotted or marbled coat patterns. Highly athletic and intelligent with an exotic look.
Developed by crossing domestic cats with the Asian leopard cat starting in the 1960s-70s by Jean Mill. Named after the leopard cat's scientific name (Prionailurus bengalensis). Recognized by TICA in 1983.
Typically 4.5-8.2 kg and 33-41 cm at the shoulder — published as one range rather than separately for males and females.
Generally described as alert, agile, energetic, demanding, intelligent, curious and playful.
That is the breed in general, not a promise about one animal. Ask the breeder what their own line is like, and meet the parents before you decide.
Breed reference from The Cat API.
Drawn from sources rather than written as an opinion — cited health research, the registry’s own standard, and peer-reviewed longevity. FIFe breed standard; The Cat API; UC Davis VGL — PRA-b (Bengal) test. One breeder’s animals can differ from any of it, and an empty column means we hold nothing for that side rather than that there is nothing to say.
FIFe standard · Bengal
As the FIFe standard sets it out. Every line below is the standard’s own wording.
Short.
Allowance for slightly longer coat in kittens.
Texture is thick, luxurious, unusually soft to the touch and preferably showing glitter.
Shortened from FIFe standard BEN — each label is the standard’s own wording with the verdict lifted into the tag beside it. Read the full clause at source.
TICA lists the Bengal in these divisions. They are the registry's own groupings — usually hair length — not a list of colours: no registry we hold publishes one. Ask a breeder what colours their line produces.
Breed-level information from The Cat API. It describes the Bengal in general; any individual animal can differ.
Known hereditary risks for the Bengal breed, and the specific documentation to request from any breeder before paying a deposit. A responsible breeder will have these readily available; deflection is a red flag.
3 conditions documentedThis is breed-level literature, not veterinary advice about an individual animal — your vet knows the animal.
Health checklist (PDF)A thickened heart muscle disease reported in Bengals in breed-specific echocardiography research; a US veterinary school has run a dedicated Bengal HCM study programme. No breed-validated DNA marker exists for Bengal, unlike Maine Coon or Ragdoll, so echocardiography is the only way to screen for it.
What to ask for
No breed-validated DNA test exists — ask for a recent echocardiogram, read by a cardiologist, on both parents
A Bengal-specific, autosomal recessive form of inherited blindness caused by a mutation distinct from the Abyssinian's, destroying the light-sensing cells of the retina. UC Davis offers a dedicated DNA test for this Bengal-only mutation.
What to ask for
UC Davis VGL Bengal-specific PRA (PRA-b) DNA test result, on both parents
The same inherited haemolytic anaemia documented in Abyssinians is also listed by UC Davis as appropriate for testing in Bengals, reflecting the breed's own foundation ancestry.
What to ask for
UC Davis VGL PK deficiency DNA test result, on both parents
Median age at death 8.4 years
Middle half of deaths between 2.1 and 14.1 years, from 73 recorded deaths. 23.3% of them were before age two.
Read this with care. Well above the 7.5% seen in non-pedigree cats, which pulls the median down. That can mean higher mortality in young cats, or simply that the breed has become popular recently so most of its cats are still young — these records cannot tell the two apart.
Computed from United Kingdom veterinary records covering 7,936 deaths. This is an age at death, not a life expectancy: half the cats of this breed in the records died younger.
Dataset: O'Neill, D. & Teng, K.T. (2024), Figshare, doi:10.6084/m9.figshare.25006802, CC BY 4.0. Teng, K.T., Brodbelt, D.C., Church, D.B. & O'Neill, D.G. (2024) Life tables of annual life expectancy and risk factors for mortality in cats in the United Kingdom. Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery 26(5).
This is where Bengal owners’ own photographs will go, from the pet profiles they keep here. Nobody has added one to a public page yet.
A photograph in a pet profile stays private to its owner. We will not put one here unless they ask us to.
That is not the same as none existing. Publishing a litter is part of a breeder's subscription here, so a Bengal breeder can have a litter and no listing — ask them directly.
See Bengal breeders