The Bengal Nose Shape
As a Bengal breeder when I am trying to understand a feature on my Bengals, I look to the small forest dwelling wildcats as a futuristic, or extreme, model of what to strive for. It isn’t likely that the Bengal cat will ever achieve a nose like that of the small forest dwelling wildcats, but understanding their nose gives me direction. In addition, I find it very helpful to contrast features with ground dwelling cats of the Felis genus as the Felis cats are the root of all domestic cat breeds. In the collage above, the cats on the top are all Felis cats, both African and European wildcats, and the cats on the bottom are all forest dwelling wildcats; in this collage, they are all Asian Leopard cats.
There are three important aspect of the nose that all work together to create the look of the forest dwelling wildcat nose – size, shape, and set. For today, I am just going to talk about shape.
The shape of a forest dwelling wildcat’s nose is very distinct from the Felis cats, so this is a great aspect to emulate in the Bengal cat. To being with, look at the upper edge of the nose of the Asian leopard cats in the bottom row of the collage above. The small forest dwelling wildcats have a slight heart shape to the top line of the nose. It does not go straight across like the Felis cats.
The most important distinction is shape, however, is the lower part of the nose. While the Felis cats tend to have a straight lower section of the nose that is equal in width or tapers to a point and the bottom edge of the noes. The Asian Leopard cat, in contrast, has a bottom flair. The bottom section of their nose flairs out again to offer a larger fleshy surface around the bottom of the nostril. As a nocturnal hunter, the small forest dwelling cats must utilize their sense of smell to find their prey, and the large fleshy, moist surface helps them use their nose to lead the to a meal.
When looking at your Bengal’s nose, look for two key features of shape – the top line has a heart shape and the bottom has a flair to the flesh around the nostril.
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The Tail
by M
While Leopard cats, technically, display a form of tabby pattern, they do not have striped legs, ringed tails, and only rarely will one have a domestic tabby M on its forehead. One of the goals of the Bengal breed is to distinguish itself from all other domestic breeds. The breaking of these traditional domestic tabby patterns, which are revered in some of the other breeds, sets the Bengal apart. To work on pattern improvement is to break the domestic tabby patterns.
Above is a collage of a variety of small forest dwelling wildcats that live and hunt at night in the trees of jungles and forests. What dominant feature of the face stands out on all of them? That big, huge, puffy nose.
The nose of the Bengal cat will likely never proportionately reach the size of the small forest dwelling wildcats, but it should still be a standout feature on the face. 
Finally, the absolute must have on a Bengal nose is a puffed nose leather. Most cat breeds have flat nose leather, so the puff of a Bengal’s nose leather is very distinct. The hair line should start back from the outer most surface of the nose, and the leather should wrap around the upper curve. If you look at the Ocelot in the center row, right column of the collage, it show the puffy nose leather the best. When viewing one of these wildcats in profile view, you will notice the nose leather actually puffs out beyond the chin. If you get a Bengal with correct nose set and nose leather, it will too.
The Bengal Standard doesn’t say anything about where the nose should be set, but a study of small forest dwelling wildcats leads to only one answer – the nose should set low in between the whisker pads – not above them. In the collage above, there is a Scottish Wildcat on the left and an Asian Leopard cat on the right. Notice the whisker pads are below the nose of the Scottish Wildcat. The nose sits on top of them. In contrast, the nose of the Asian Leopard cat is set in between the whisker pads – they are positioned to the side of the nose.
One thing to look for in looking for a low set nose is the amount of whisker pad that connects between the bottom of the nose and the lip. The more space you have here, the higher the nose set is. Look for noses that have very little connection of the whisker pads beneath them. 
The middle third of the Rule of Thirds is likely the most difficult section to write about because in the middle third, it is more about what you do NOT want to appear there than what you do want to appear there. Notice in the picture of the ALC, the eyes are in the first third and the ears are in the last third. That is exactly as it should be, but it doesn’t leave any obvious facial feature for the middle third.
On this middle third, otherwise known as the forehead, you want to try to keep an even sweep to the skull from the nose bridge up over the head and into the back skull. If you look around at Bengal cat adults, you will often see a change of direction above the eyes as the forehead flattens out. This is something to avoid when trying to achieve the skull shape of the ALC. Some Bengals go the the extreme of having a dent in the skull here. It looks as if someone has taken their thumb and pushed the skull in above the eyes. This is not desirable.
Instead, look for kitten who has a lot of forehead. Look for kittens whose forehead goes UP from a distance above the eyes and ears. Kittens who have exaggerated foreheads will develop into adult cats who have the correct, continuous roll over from the nose bridge all the way through to the back skull. They will not develop a change of direction or the dreaded thumbprint indent on the forehead.
The first third of on the head of a small forest dwelling wildcat is the most important third of all. The front third of the head distinguishes this group of cats from all other wildcats on the planet. 
All of this background on prey size and muzzle length leads us to the front third of the Asian Leopard cat’s head. In profile view, notice the eyes are on the front third of the skull. If breeders want to emulate the look of the small wildcats, they must select for Bengals who have their eyes on the front third of the skull as well.
From the outside, it looks simple, but breeding cats is complex. Unfortunately, the idea of breeding cats – a household pet, not a livestock animal – has a broad spectrum of motivations behind it. Some people do it for the sake of making money, others because kittens are adorable, and others because they love cats. When searching for a pedigreed pet, you must unearth a breeder’s purpose for breeding. Know their WHY. Why do they breed cats? Why do they breed Bengals, specifically? A breeder’s why should come from passion, not profit, and here is how to tell the difference. 
Placing the right Bengal cat in the right home is the most significant responsibility of a breeder. The Bengal cat is known for its confident, friendly, outgoing personality with high energy and intelligence levels. This is the disposition Bengal breeders should be striving for in their cats. If a Bengal breeder discovers a cat in their program that consistently produces temperaments that are shy, less intelligent, or low in energy, those cats should be removed from the program because they do not meet the breed goal.
When looking for a well-bred kitten, be specific about what you want in a kitten, and then ask the breeder how they know the kitten will be what you want. Good breeders know, so ask! 
One of the benefits of buying a purebred cat should be a known health history and health testing completed on the parents of the Bengal kitten. Responsible breeders should strive to produce cats with a longer lifespan than cats with unknown health statuses. Many factors contribute to the improvement of the overall health of the Bengal breed: health testing, health education, genetic diversity, and the health of the breeding environment. 
Listening to the rationale of a breeder’s choices tells you about their willingness to self-educate. Health information changes fast. Researchers are discovering new information all the time. When you read what a breeder puts on their website or have a conversation with the breeder, do they sound like a person interested in learning the latest advancements in health? Can they advise you on vaccines with science-based reasoning for their choice? A responsible breeder is your cat consultant for the lifespan of the cat. Unfortunately, the 
Does the breeder understand how food choices affect health? Can the breeder explain the nutritional needs of an obligate carnivore that evolved from a desert animal? Evolution suggests that a raw diet with few to no plant-based ingredients heavy in moisture provides the most bioavailable nutrients to a cat. If the breeder-selected diet diverges from this, can the breeder tell you why they feed what they do based on how their food choice meets the needs of their cats? Again, hearing a science-based rationale is better than having one preconceived answer. Knowing food choices are made for reasons other than the food company giving the breeders a kickback. 
Linebreeding in and of itself also does not make a breeder irresponsible. But if a breeder has linebred, ask the breeder why they did the linebreed and why they were comfortable linebreeding on that particular cat. The breeder should have an answer that includes the goal they were hoping to achieve and the known health history of the cat that was linebred upon. Typically, when linebreeding on a particular cat, that cat should be older, so the breeder knows if any heart issues developed over time, if the cat had any structural weaknesses, and if the cat produced other health ailments. When asking questions about linebreeding, listen to see that the breeder clearly understands the breeding’s benefits and risks. 
The first draw to a pedigree cat is its appearance. However, appearance should never overshadow health; it is synergistic with health. 
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A fellow Bengal breeder faced a dilemma. She raised Bengals because she wanted to share the joy of these beautiful cats with others. As usual, her clients picked out their kittens while they were young. As the kittens developed, she noticed that one of the boys was not developing the personality she prided herself in offering her clients. She diligently worked to bring the shy kitten out of his shell – having him play with her children, around the dogs, with the littermates, household visitors, and extended family members, but the kitten never became bold. His personality was, by nature, shy. As the kittens’ departure date approached, she grew weary. This kitten did not epitomize what she wanted to provide for her clients. So she did what every well-intentioned breeder would do. She offered the family her sweet-natured keeper kitten and kept the shy one for herself, not realizing how the selfless act would affect all of her future kittens when using the shy male as her sire. 
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I reached out to a friend who is a judge and asked how one would describe the shape of the eye that I would like to see on the Bengal, and she pointed me to the American Curl standard for some ideas. Bingo, I think they hit it – almost. 
Standards need to account for the set of the eyes as well and this is where Bengal standards everywhere have an opportunity to clarify for breeders what a nocturnal set looks like. It is obvious by looking at the wildcat collage that the eyes of nocturnal cats are set to the outside edges of the face with approximately one eye width between them. Defining the width by the size of the eye would help Bengal breeders keep everything in the proper proportion. There seems to be a common understanding that Bengal eyes should be wide apart, but the proportion of width to eye size is off on many Bengals with the width being too wide and the eyes being too small. Clarifying the proportions could be an asset to kitten selection. This would also allow for the eye description to help guide the head width to be in accordance to other areas of the standard – particularly where it calls for the head to be longer than it is wide and slightly small in proportion to the body. It would be nice to start to see the different pieces of the standard working together instead of contradicting one another.
To have the nocturnal look, the Bengal eyes cannot be deeply set into the skull. The nose bridge should not extend out beyond the eye lens very far. This coincides with the need for a lot of surface area on the lens of the eye. A nocturnal eye must allow as much light to enter the eyeball as possible. Furthermore, the bottom of the eye is set further out than it is on the majority of cats making the angle of the eye parallel to the bridge of the nose if the cat has the desired downward turned muzzle that is shown on the Leopard cat in the picture. Even on cats who don’t have the downward turned muzzle, the eye should sit ever so slightly tilted upward. For all of this to exist, the Bengal needs the bone structure from the Leopard cat. If standards start to describe with clarity what a nocturnal eye looks like, breeders will have to start selecting the stronger bone structure. All choices have a domino effect, and this will have a positive domino effect.
For many years, it has appeared as if the top priority of breeders is to achieve small ears. Small ears are not very wild looking when they are triangular. 
In addition to the forward tilt having an impact on the appearance of the size of the ear, where the ears sit on the head has an impact as well. The kitten collaged with the drawing has a fantastic shape, but the ears are too high on the head. If you move the ears down or add more top skulls, the same ears would “look” smaller. Now imagine not only moving the set down a tiny bit but also adding forward tilt; the ears would appear to be diminutive, even though their actual size would not change. 
When kittens are born, less than half of the ear flap is physically detached from the head. This is why newborn ears always look tiny. At this stage, there is very little active blood flow in the ear flap. Damage done to the ear flap at this time can easily go unnoticed due to lack of bleeding. 
As breeders, sometimes we have to ask ourselves – what is the goal? Small? Or accurate? The Bengal will naturally go through phases in which the best ears do not appear small to get to the accurate ear. These cats will struggle in the show hall as the show hall, at the moment of publication, favors size over the shape and set. Most Bengal standards describe the size of the ears first. By having the size in the first place position in the description, it sends the message to judges that size is the most important aspect of the ear. Bengal breeders may consider discussing with their breed committees and breed chairs whether reorganizing the ear description could assist in the show hall, encouraging breeders to focus more on the shape and set and less on size. We need to get to the point where judges mention the shape of ears, such as these on Lots Of Spots Rayne Dancer; more often than not, they mention size. 
A population is a group of animals that breeds freely with one another in a particular area. In nature, this is a species population. As a population becomes separated from other groups of the same species, it develops adaptations to the specific environment, and these changes can push it towards being a subspecies. A subspecies is a variant from the original species that has some minor genetic changes but is still genetically similar enough to be considered a member of the same species. Over time and with further isolation, a subspecies can develop enough environmental adaptations and genetic mutations to become a separate species. In the wild, this takes a great deal of time and many generations to occur. Sometimes this process is accelerated when a population becomes dramatically isolated, such as when a peninsula becomes separated into an island. At that point, the genetic pool in the population is all that is available to work with. The individuals who are best adapted to the environment raise more offspring; over time, their genetics increase within the population. Related individuals with the same successful genetic adaptations will produce offspring until an identifiable genetic population is established. This causes a high expression of the genes that made the originals better suited. Eventually, these genes are found throughout the entire population. This is natural linebreeding, but in nature, selective pressures such as disease, weather conditions, competition for resources, and predators remove most animals that are not healthy or strong enough to continue the line. 
The herd now numbers around 100 individuals at Chillingham castle. Genetic analysis of the herd has found them incredibly low in genetic diversity. They are verging on genetic clones, having only minor genetic variations between individuals. The team studying their genetics wanted to look at the genes responsible for disease resistance. They found that the cattle have almost no genetic variation in the areas associated with immune response. Usually, this would increase the mortality rate, but this has not been the case. This could be because the genetic isolation has meant that they have naturally weeded out the most susceptible genes that allow the development of the diseases in the area, or it could be that their isolation from other cattle has protected them from exposure to disease. This is potentially very risky, so to protect the rare genetics of these cattle, a satellite herd was established in Northern Scotland as a safety net. Having a separate group far away from the original population means that if the main herd was to become infected with something in the future and have a mass die-off, there are still individuals out there to bring them back. 
If you split this large colony into multiple smaller groups, you would expect 75% of the cats to be brown tabby and 25% to be solid black over a period of time. However, the success of some individuals in each population can skew the results. If a solid black male were born in one of the groups and took over as the dominant male, he would pass that gene on to all of his offspring. Within a few years, this would mean a high number of solid black cats would exist in this population. If, on the other hand, a brown tabby A/A male was dominant in another group then he would never be contributing the genes for solid black, and a reduction of this gene would happen in the population. Over multiple generations, genes may be lost entirely or completely take over in a population through this method. This is a basic example of how genetic drift works. 
Outcrossing can also be done at a higher level by doing so outside of the breed. This is when a member of a different breed or a non-pedigree animal is brought into a pedigree line. Individuals from other breeds can add even more genetic diversity to a program. However, careful selection must be used to breed back to the desired look as a different breed will not match the desired goals of the original breed in every way. A non-pedigree animal can add even more diversity but again requires careful selection to breed away from undesired traits that are introduced simultaneously. 
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While breeder selection benefits cat behavior, a breeder’s responsibility does not stop there. The environment they create for their kittens affects behavior as well. Raising a kitten in a secure and comfortable environment results in more confident, less anxious adult cats. This security involves when kittens wean, how long they are raised around their Mom and other supportive adult cats, how much play they engage in while growing up, and how they are introduced to everyday household activities. Please read our article on 
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Hybridizing is when two different types of animals (species or breeds) are bred together. Hybridizing aims to combine the desirable characteristics of both types into a single offspring. The F1 Bengal is a hybrid; one parent is a leopard cat, and one parent is a domestic cat – often, but not always – a Bengal. To continue a line of hybrids, both genders must be fertile. F2 hybrids come from two F1 hybrids breeding together. This is not possible with the F1 Bengal hybrids.
