HHave you ever seen a Bengal cat or kitten that looks like it was sprinkled with glitter? That iridescent sheen and soft hair is due to something called "Glitter Coat". It's a recessive gene inherited from a bengal's parents. Although all of the cats at Chalk Mountain Bengal Cattery have it, not all bengals do.
The glitter gene is not actually one of the traits inherited from the Asian Leopard Cat, it can be traced back to one of the founding domestic cats of the Bengal breed. This founding cat was Millwood Tory of Delhi. Jean Mill came across Millwood Tory of Delhi during a trip to India in 1982 and imported him into the United States. Millwood Tory of Delhi was a domestic street cat she found after it had made a home in the rhinoceros enclosure at the New Delhi Zoo. After careful breeding and multiple generations Jean produced an amazing litter of kittens with this strange, three-dimentional coat. It's thought that today all glitter bengals can be traced back to Millwood Tory of Delhi.
Jean Mill was an amazing woman and advocate to the Bengal breed, without her dedication Bengals wouldn't be what they are today. I'm continually impressed with the life she led, Jean also wrote two books: Guide to Owning a Bengal Cat (1999) and Breeding Better Bengals: Facts, Fallacies and Fascinations (1999).
Fun fact: Chalk Mountain's very own Louie has a Millwood in his 5 generation pedigree (Millwood Epitimee of Traipse) More Pictures of our Brown Bengal King
Another influential Bengal breeder is Gene Ducote, owner of Gogees Cattery. She was a huge contributor to the development of many Bengal colors and features. Her Bengal lineage contributed to the development of rosetted patterns, snow mink color, snow sepia color, and glitter. We can trace back most present day Bengals to the Gogees Cattery including Chalk Mountain's Bengals. Chalk Mountain's Juno, Chalk Mountain's Kahlua, Chalk Mountain's Arctic, and Louie all have multiple Gogees ancestry in their 5 generation pedigrees.
All of our pedigrees are listed on our Documents page: Bengal cattery pedigrees Texas
Anyway, back to glitter coat...
Like I said above, the glitter gene is recessive which means that a kitten needs two recessive glitter genes to actually have glitter. Some researchers believe that glitter genes are accumulative (if you breed two glittered bengals, their offspring may be more glittered) though this is not proven.
Here is an example of the glitter coat from one of our kittens
Bengal glitter coat can present itself in different ways depending on the color of the Bengal kitten. Classic brown bengals have a really nice golden colored glitter, Snow Bengals have more of a pearl colored glitter, and silver kittens have a silvery sparkle to them. We had a Melanistic (black) Bengal last year who's coat glittered an almost blue color.
There are two main types of Bengal glitter:
1: Mica (gold-tipped)
This effect makes the tip of the hair sparkle. Under a microscope it looks like a tiny crystal embedded in the top of each hair.
2: Satin (hollow-hair)
Satin is the type that most of our Bengals have. It looks like mica but the glitter effects the whole hair shaft, making the whole hair reflect light. The pockets of air inside the hair shaft make the hair silkier and softer as well.
How do I know if my kitten has glitter coat?
There is actually a genetic test for glitter coat. This test is part of the standard genetic testing we do on all of our adult Bengal cats.
We could compile pages upon pages of information and data about Bengal genetics and glitter coat. But this is a nice simple overview to get you started.
Thanks for reading,
Linda
