What’s a Marble Bengal?
When people first think of a beautiful Bengal — they often picture a “minature leopard”, a small domestic cat masquerading as a spotted/rosetted wild cat. However, another totally unique bengal pattern also exists: the MARBLE Bengal!
The exquisite, recessive pattern of today’s marbled Bengal is completely unlike any other domestic cat. This is NOTHING like your grandma’s tabby cat! Today’s marbled Bengal is, rather, reminiscient of two rare species of the BIG cats: the Clouded Leopard and the King’s Cheetah. Both of these big wild cats has a modified spotted or rosetted pattern. In the case of the 
King Cheetah — the resemblance to the marbled Bengal is more than “skin deep” — because the two patterns are both results of a recessive gene, carried by both parents — causing a relatively “rare” elongated or random “marbled” pattern.
The smaller, South American Ocelot and the Margay also exhibit individuals with elongated flowing, horizontal patterns reminiscient of today’s cutting edge marble Bengals.
Today, more and more knowledgeable, cutting-edge Bengal breeders are working to enhance and capitalize on the unconstestable beauty and obvious “one-of-a-kind” uniqueness that this pattern gives to each individual animal.
What sort of pattern is desirable in a marble Bengal? Just as the ignatious stone, marble, is composed of random swirls and streaks of pattern — breeders of the marble Bengal are working to achieve a pattern that is made of random or horizontally flowing islands of color, which stand out in striking contrast to the underlying “background color”. Special emphasis is placed on achieving a pattern where each island is obviously outlined with a dark outer contour layer, while being filled with a dramatically contrasting lighter-toned center. Effort is employed to remove as much of the tabby-influenced “bullseye” tendancy from the pattern as possible.
The actual conformation of these unique and beautiful “islands” of color — is amazingly and wonderously varied. Some Bengal patterns are described as “stained glass”, others are “rippled”. There are “embossed” patterns and “solid” patterns… There are even “iconic” patterns… In short, each marble Bengal has a UNIQUE pattern, and is without doubt, a “work of nature’s art”.
We, at Ashanti Bengals, are just beginning in our exploration of this beautiful, wild, Bengal pattern. We are looking forward to breeding beautiful and unique marble Bengals, in cooperation with other specialized and focused breeders from around the world. If you would like to see more of what our breeding colleagues are producing worldwide, do not hesitate to join the Marble Bengal list on Yahoo.com.
One thing is SURE, if you want a cat unlike any other cat — look at today’s Marble Bengal — there’s no other domestic cat like it!
Note: The Bengal photos in this article do not belong to Ashanti Bengals. Many thanks to catteries specializing in the Marble Bengal for sharing their graphics with us!
