#SilverBengals are a fairly new breed of #Bengal cats. They were originally crossbred from a traditional Bengal and a #Silver cat as Silver spotted American Short Hair or Egyptian mau. The patterns can be marbled or in the form of rosettes or spots. Silver bengals reminds us beutiful wild cat - Snow Leopard.
At least two different genes are suspected of influencing the silver and golden coat colors found in bengal cats.
Silvers are created by the Inhibitor gene (I/?), as it inhibits (not eliminates) warm pigment or yellow pigment in the cat’s hair while leaving black pigment. These trace amounts of warm pigment are what we refer to as #tarnish, yellow/red pigment on the face, back, legs and throughout the coat. Generally considered a dominant trait, one copy can cause the loss of pigment, but likely a cat with two copies of the mutation ( pink color in chart 1.) may have less “ruffusing” or “tarnishing” as well. The Inhibitor gene can not be "carried". A cat is either a silver or it isn't. Currently there isn't a commercial color test for the Inhibitor gene.
I - Inhibitor - silver i - Non-inhibitor or non-silver
II - Silver bengal #homozygous
Ii - Silver bengal #heterozygous
In chart you can see what kittens you will get from breeding black spotted (marbled) bengal with heterozygot (blue color) or homozygous ( pink color) silver spotted (marbled) bengal.
Bengal cats that are non-agouti (aa) and are solid, will appear as smokes, with white at the base of the hair when they have the silver mutation. Black (brown) melanistic bengal has black color at the base too.
Wide-band is the trait that affects the length of the band, displayed when the cat is agouti (AA or Aa). This gene seems to have extensive variation, causing many short bands or a few longer bands. The selection for longer and fewer bandings in the cats’ hair is likely due to selection by breeders and is less common in the feral cat population. Cats with extremely long bands appear as chinchilla’s when the cats are silver and goldens when the cats are non-silver.
Silvers can also be found in any other color combination:
Silver Snow - silver seal lynx, silver seal mink, silver seal sepia - sometimes it is hard to be sure if cat is silver snow. Only after right breeding you can be sure about silver gene.
Silver #Charcoal bengal cat - more in charcoal article
Blue Silver, etc…
Stříbrná kočka bengálská , Bengálská kočka stříbro