IIn May of 2020 Charcoal was finally recognized by The International Cat Associaltion (TICA). This was a huge accomplishment and has been a long time coming. The Charcoal Bengal can now be shown as well.
Charcoal Bengal Qualities:
It's important to remember that the Charcoal trait is independant. It can display in each of the color classes: Brown, Silver, Snow, and even Blue.
Undercoat Color:
Their undercoat/background color depends on the color class of the kitten. Snow Charcoal will have a white-cream background. Silver Charcoal will have an almost grey-scale coloring (just shades of grey, white, and black). Classic Brown Charcoal will have a warmer tone than the silver charcoal. The blue charcoal looks similar to the silver charcoal as well, but the strength of the color is deluted.
Markings:
Charcoal's overall appearance is darker, they can also have a "cape" running down their backs (a dark line or dark shading). Charcoals can have a spotted or marbled pattern.
Mask:
The most striking part of the charcoal bengal, in my opinion, is the mask across the face. They have dark shading across the nose, cheeks, temples, and around the eyes. This, paired with their light colored googles is my favorite part.
Eye Color:
Similar to the background color, their eye color is not changed by the charcoal gene and depends on other factors.
Basic Genetics:
(I'm going to try to explain genetics at a simplified level)
When a kitten gets it's DNA from the parents they get one chromosome from the father and one chromosome from the mother.
These chromosomes are made up of genes. Genes are essentially the traits that make us look the way we do. With charcoal Bengal kittens the two alleles (parts of a gene) we're looking at are "APb" and "a".
Charcoal Genetics:
We can really nerd out on all of the genetics that go into charcoal traits, but I worry I'm going to bore you. I'm going to keep this as simple as I can.
The strongest charcoal genotype is APb/a. This combination of genetics produces the darkest/clearest charcoal patterning.
For simplicity's sake I'm going to call this a "true charcoal".
If a kitten is: A/A, a/a, or A/a they will not have the charcoal pattern. APb/APb can have some charcoal attributes.
Snow Charcoal Bengal
This picture is credited to AsuraCats find the link here.
Silver Charcoal Bengal
This is one of our past Silver Charcoal Bengals for sale.
Classic (brown) Charcoal Bengal
This is one of our past Classic Brown Charcoal Bengals for sale.
Look-alike Charcoal:
Note: Some APb/APb kittens look very similar to charcoals, but they aren't a true charcoal and usually their markings are not as striking.
Scientists still don't fully understand the dominance of APb over a, which means their scientific investigation into charcoal Bengals is ongoing.
In the pictures below you can see two kittens who both have charcoal attributes. However the first kitten is APb/a (true charcoal) and the second is APb/APb.
Comparing true Charcoal and look-alike
This is one of our past Classic Brown Charcoal Bengals for sale.
Breeding for Charcoals
You don't actually have to have a "true charcoal" parent to have "true charcoal" kittens. As long as one parent carries "APb" in his/her genetics and the other carries "a". If this is the case, you will have 25% chance of "true charcoals" in their litter.
Chalk Mountain's Charcoal Bengals:
Queen Star, Queen Vera, and King Arctic are all charcoal carriers.
Star carries "a", Vera carries "APb", and Arctic carries "APb".
This means that when Arctic and Star are paired together they can create beautiful "true charcoals".
When Arctic and Vera are paired together they can create cute little "look-alike charcoals" but not "true charcoals".
Silver Bengal that carries brown, melanistic (black bengal), charcoal, and blue
Silver Bengal that carries snow, charcoal, and brown