MMelanistic Bengals are also known as Black Bengals or Solid Bengals.
Melanistic Bengal Qualities:
Undercoat Color:
Their undercoat/background color depends on the color class of the kitten. Snow melanistics will have a lighter grey color, silver melanistics (aka Smoke) will have a grey undercoat, and the classic brown melanistic will have a warm grey undertone.
Markings:
Depending on the light melanisitc bengals will look completely black at times. Other times the sunlight will shine just right and you'll see the rosettes in all their glory.
Eye Color:
Similar to the background color, their eye color is not changed by the melanistic gene and depends on other factors.
Basic Solid Bengal (Melanistic) 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 melanistic (black) Bengal kittens the two alleles (parts of a gene) we're looking at are "A" and "a".
For a Bengal kitten to be melanistic (solid) he/she would have to have the a/a genotype. If a kitten has A/a or A/A they will not be melanistic.
Melanistic Big Cats
Interestingly enough, Jaguars and Leopards can also be melanistic.
These melanistic cats are known as Black Panthers.
Examples of Chalk Mountain's Melanistic kittens:
Breeding Melanistic Bengals
You don't actually have to have a melanstic or solid black parent to have melanistic kittens. As long as one parent carries "a" in his/her genetics and the other carries "a" you will have a chance of melanistics in their litter.
Chalk Mountain's Melanistic Bengals:
Queen Star is our only melanistic carrier.
King Zeus used to also carry the genetics for melanistic kittens, however he is now retired.
This means that at this time we will not have an opportunity for melanistic Bengal kittens.
We do have Charcoal kittens, which is very similar and we do plan on adding a male carrier in the future.
Silver Bengal that carries brown, melanistic (black bengal), charcoal, and blue