Proailurus

A brief history of the cat
Felidae is the biological family of the cats. A member of this family is called a felid and they are amongst the oldest mammals on the planet.

The first true cat was the Proailurus and it came into existence about 25 million years ago. Proailurus was a small animal weighing approximately 20 lb, it had a long tail, large eyes and sharp claws and teeth. It is believed to have been a tree-dweller.

The African Wildcat, often called the Desert Cat or Desert Wildcat, appears to have diverged from the other subspecies about 131,000 years ago. The wildcats were first domesticated around 10,000 years ago in the Near East and are the ancestors of all domestic cats. Remains of cats have been found in human burials as far back as 9,500 years ago in Cyprus

African Wild Cat

For many years it was believed that the domestic cat first appeared in Egypt. That it was likely kept as a means of controlling pests and then later became a cult animal with a significant religious following.

A recent study, by the National Cancer Institute published in the journal Science, says that all house cats are descended from a group of self-domesticating Desert Wildcats around 10,000 years ago in the Near East.

Carlos A. Driscoll of the National Cancer Institute spent six years collecting species of wildcat from around the world for the purpose of DNA testing. This revealed that there are five subspecies of wildcat distributed across the Old World. They are known as the European wildcat, the Near Eastern wildcat, the Southern African wildcat, the Central Asian wildcat and the Chinese desert cat.

The DNA of all house cats and fancy cats falls within the Near Eastern wildcat cluster. The domestics fell into five lineages indicating that all domestic cats are originated from five individuals. This study was based on the analysis of mitochondrial DNA.

The Crystal Palace in London England

The history of the Bengal
The first organized cat show was held at the Crystal Palace in London on the 13th of July, 1871 and with it was born the Cat Fancy. According to records the breeds shown were the Persian, Angoras, Manx, Abyssinian, the Royal Cats of Siam and domestic cats crossed with wild cats, hybrids.

The record indicates that the hybrids on display we produced by crossing the domestic short hair with a spotted jungle cat. The shows continued in 1873 and again in 1875 and in every case there was a class for wild or hybrid cats.

I've been treated to the snobbery of breeders who believe Bengal's are an inferior breed. Believe it or not cat breeders can be pretty darn catty :) Big surprise eh? Much of this elitism aimed at the Bengal is likely jealousy and the most common jab is that our breed is too young to be considered more then the flavor of the day.

It's nice to think that that those first hybrids shown in 1871 might have been crosses of an ALC with a domestic but we will never know. What we do know though is that the hybrid has every bit as long a history in cat shows as any of the so called older breeds.

The first record we have of an actual Bengal (although the term Bengal didn't come up till many years later) was the mention of an ALC crossed with a domestic in 1934 by a Belgian scientific journal. In 1941 a Japanese cat publication printed an article about an ALC/domestic cross that was kept as a pet.

As a point of interest, Jean Sugden, the Queen of the Bengal breed, submitted a term paper for her genetics class at UC Davis on the subject of cross breeding cats in 1946.

I have abridged the quotes from Jean only for the purpose of shortening them up for this page. Please follow this link if you would like to read the original story in Jean's own words. It is a good read and quickly shows why Jean must be given most of the credit for founding this breed. An intelligent and articulate woman, Jean's journey was filled with tragedy and she suffered greatly for her vision but she refused to be stilled. Jean Mill is still a force to be reckoned with and you will find her web site here. I personally would like thank Jean for her vision and determination.

Jean's first experience with the ALC/domestic occured in the early 60's and a vision was born

Jean Sugden with Kin Kin

" We can all thank my beautiful ALC "Malaysia", imported from SE Asia in 1961, for her love of a black domestic shorthaired tomcat. Her baby, KinKin, shown in the upper right of the color photo page, was a thrilling surprise, for I was unaware of anyone else doing this research. I did not even suspect Malaysia's pregnancy! The male littermate was fatally mauled while being removed for its safety from Malaysia through the bottom of her cardboard nest box, but KinKin was put safely with a newborn Himalayan litter while still birth-wet.." "When my husband, Bob Sugden, died, I gave Malaysia to the San Diego zoo, and moved to Southern California to an apartment. There KinKin and Pantherette contracted pneumonitus (we didn't have vaccines for it then) and died. Thus ended my early project."

Throughout the 60's there were many well known breeders that produced Bengal's but few took it past the F1 stage and records indicate that none were known to go past F2. In addition to breeders efforts the Zoological Society of London mentions several ALC hybrids being born in zoo's in Europe.

The 60's was also a time that saw an epidemic of feline leukemia. It seemed that many wild cats had a natural immunity to the disease and some other illnesses such as FIV (Feline Immunodeficiency Virus). This would come to have a great influence on the development of the Bengal when in the 70's Loyola University would start a research program to investigate if this natural immunity could be bred in or replicated. ( It can't. )

Loyola's research program was called the Centerwall Project as it was run by Dr Willard Centerwall. He was interested in investigating the partial immunity ALC's have to feline leukemia. For the purpose of his research he needed access to ALC/domestic crosses that he could draw blood from to see if the immunity had been passed on to the hybrid. The cross breeding was handled by Gordon Meredith, and Mary Gepford. These F1's had no further use once a sample of their blood was drawn so the study produced a significant number of F1's that needed homes.

Leopard Cat Picture is from lioncrusher.com

While the 60’s and 70’s saw considerable experimentation there was little effort to create a breed from these hybrids. There were some cat clubs formed that centered on hybrids and some of these clubs began to orient more on something William Engler, a member of the Long Island Ocelot Club and a breeder, called a Bengal. It is believed that Mr Engler got the name from the Leopard Cats scientific name, Prionailurus Bengalensis.

Several of the clubs that oriented on hybrids started producing newsletters detailing the process of producing Bengal's and Safari. There were also a couple of clubs oriented specifically on the Bengal such as "Another Bengal Club" and the "Bengal-seen Luchsals Fanciers". Members of these clubs actually bred some second and third generation Bengal's which were registered with the American Cat Fanciers Association (A.C.F.A.) in 1977 as experimental. They were displayed at several A.C.F.A. cat shows throughout the 70’s.

It was here that Jean Sugden resurfaced again. She had remarried and was now Jean Mill and the following quote explains her increased interest in renewing her breeding efforts.

Jean acquired 4 female F1's from the Centerwall study. Jean is quoted as saying

She later received another 5 hybrids from another source, but originally from the Centerwall project, and the following is quoted from Jeans web site.

Jean did not want to use existing domestic breeds to create her new bred. The ALC is a genetically superiour animal compared to the existing registered breeds and her goal was to maintain as much of that superiority as possible so the search was on. Around 1982 the Mill's made a trip to India where a zoo curator showed them a feral domestic cat that apparently lived in the rhinoceros display. Jean made arrangements to have this Indian Mau shipped to the states this was how the famous rosetted domestic called "Millwood Tory of Delhi" came to be found in virtually all Bengal pedigrees

Jean now had everything she needed to lay the foundation for a new breed and for the first time someone started breeding ALC based hybrids with full intentions of taking them well past the F2/F3 stage.

Someone else that needs to be given some credit is Greg and Elizabeth Kent who developed their own line of Bengal's using ALC's and Egyptian Maus. They were quite successful and many modern Bengal's will find Bengal's from their program in their pedigree. Jean also considered the Egyptian Mau but decided against it as she beleived better options existed.

As the Kents and Jean Mill started to show their respective lines of Bengal's public enthusiasm built rapidly. Finally a cat with the exotic wild look people desired was available without the drawbacks of a wild animal. As their popularity grew so did the number of breeders and owners, which led to the formation of T.I.C.A.'s Bengal Breed Section. T.I.C.A. adopted the first written breed standard in 1986 and the first Bengal Bulletin was published in Nov/Dec 1988.

Once the ball started rolling we saw the formation of The International Bengal Cat Society (T.I.B.C.S.), the Bengal Breeders Alliance (B.B.A.) and the Authentic Bengal Cat League (A.B.C.L.). These organizations were formed to promote good breeding practices, discourage unscrupulous breeders and attempt to educate people about the Bengal breed.

Bengal's still have a way to go before they are fully accepted by the various Cat Fancies but it is hard to resist such a magnificent animal. Slowly but surely the inroads are being made. They are the number one registered breed with TICA today so the other organizations will soon have no choice except to re-evaluate their policies. After all a hybrid, possibly even a Bengal, was shown at the very first cat fancy. The same cat fancy that all of the other fancies evolved from. Like it or not the Bengal is already older then many breeds and is here to stay and rightly so. They are a truly amazing cat and perhaps the worlds greatest companion animal.

sources
The web site of Jean Mill
Article written by Gregory Kent, Ph.D. and Elizabeth Kent, M.S. / February 1997 blogs.adison.edu/companions/category/geography/
http://www.bengalclassifieds.com/bengal-cat-education-history.htm
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1139518
http://www.nytimes.com
http://www.wikipedia.org