Do Bengal Kittens Change Color?

One of the most common questions we get asked here at Authentic Bengal Cats is ‘do Bengal kittens change color?’

Bengal kittens are strikingly, stunning, beautiful animals, and many prospective owners are often concerned that they are going to purchase an animal whose looks may change substantially as their cat gets older (if you’re interested, make sure you check out our article here on when a Bengal cat is fully grown/considered an adult).

So, do Bengal kittens change color as they age?

The answer is yes, they can.

In fact, two different things can happen here.

One is that your Bengal kitten’s coat can actually change in colour; it can become darker or lighter, depending on how dark/light your Bengal kitten was at birth.

For example, a darker coloured Bengal kitten may become lighter coloured, or vice versa (or it may even “double down”).

There are various biological reasons for this, one of them being that the kitten coat is quite different to the adult coat; the “fuzzy” kitten coat of all cats will tend to look substantially different to the adult coat of a cat. Another reason is that as your Bengal kitten ages he/she is developing their proper ‘camouflage’ to keep them safe in the wild!

Therefore, Bengal kittens do change color as they get older.

Another aspect that changes is the arrangement, size and shape of any rosettes/markings. Markings on a juvenile Bengal cat will often look significantly different to those on an adult cat.

At a simple level, think about the following analogy.

Take a deflated balloon, and then draw some markings, stripes and/or rosettes on it (just like your Bengal has).

Next, blow up the balloon gradually until it is fully sized.

What happens to the markings? They change size and shape! And it’s a little bit like that for your Bengal cat too. As he/she gets older those markings are going to change in size and shape along with the color of the coat.

To wrap up and answer the question ‘do bengal kittens change color’ – yes, they do, and the shape and size of their markings change as well.

For example, here’s what our Bengal Kala looked like at different stages of her life (she’s still alive now by the way – although becoming quite an elderly cat).

We hope you found this article helpful – please browse our site for more Bengal cat information.