In this short article, we answer the common question ‘can Bengal cats have stripes?’
Bengal cats are renowned the world over for their stunning, striking beauty.
Many desire their own “mini Tiger”, and a Bengal cat is surely one of the best breeds of domestic cat to fit this bill.
Bengal cats are perhaps most famous for their incredible rosettes, as you see in the following pictures:
But can Bengal cats have stripes?
Bengal Cats CAN Have Striped Coats (Sort Of)
There are fundamentally two types of Bengal cat coats.
The first (and probably most well known) is the spotted coat type:
This is what we mean when we talk of ‘rosettes’.
The second coat type is the “marbled” coat type:
Marbled Bengal cat coat patterns come from blotched, tabby stripes that swirl around the body.
Breed standards prefer a marbled Bengal cat has a horizontally flowing, asymmetrical pattern made up of swirls of more than two colours.
There are four ‘sub types’ of marble coat:
* Chaos
* Sheet marble
* Reduced horizontal flow
* Horizontal flow
As you can see, there isn’t strictly a ‘striped’ Bengal cat coat type.
However, the marbled coat type can often take on a striped appearance, as you can see here:
It is also possible for a Bengal cat to have rosettes/spots and then some striping, as seen below:
To conclude, can Bengal cats have striped coats?
Yes they can, but in a slightly “roundabout” fashion thanks to the unique nature of the marbled coat type. There isn’t (to the best of our knowledge) a specific striped type of Bengal cat. If you have information to the contrary, then we would certainly like to hear it.
