Hi,

I know you said you would leave the Cinnammon to the Abyssinian owners but now you have really piqued my curiousity. What pairing might have produced my girl Sakura. I know she is a Cinnammon Marble Bengal and I think it is a recessive gene?

Would you mind explaining her colour in a bit more depth please? I haven't found any other cinnammon owners on the forums yet.. but you never know. These photos are to show her from different angles. I hope there are not too many!!

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Shantra

Hi Ren,

I guess I didn't explain that very well, but I see what you mean, and those cats both have beautiful contrast, but if you look at the full length hairs at the edge of the shaved part you can see the hairs are still banded even in the dark markings, darker at the surface but lighter nearer the body rather than black all the way through. The banding looks a lot darker on the marble girl that the spotty girl, but you can see they are still banded.

I'll try and take some pics comparing my cats when I part the fur the skin to show what I mean. Sorry I'm sure I've taken this thread off on a massive tangent with what started as a silly little question....but because I've never seen this before it just intrigued me...

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with best wishes

Tim and the Family Feline

Tigra, Azlan, Bilbo and Zion

I see what you mean...the spotty is definately slightly lighter in the black areas, but the marble is black to the skin in the black areas. It lightens with the tri-marbling of course.
I can imagine how much more striking it is in the early gens or the tight-coated darkly marked cats.
It's a shame they don't have to shave the sides & go in when neutering the boys or we'd have a good opportunity to see it on Zion!

Sorry I seem to have kind of dropped in to the middle of an existing conversation - but hopefully AnnC will get back to me on my question.

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Shantra

OK, here are some pics comparing Tigra, Azlan and Zion. The flash has made them all look a bit lighter than they are in reality, but even so I'm sure you'll see what I'm getting at. Sorry they are a bit blurred - I was struggling trying to keep them still (against their wishes!) and part their fur with one hand and take a picture with the other. Also I suspect these will be huge, I forgot to resize them before uploading and still haven't figured out how to resize them in Tinypic

I've parted each of their fur in the middle part of their dark spot/marble pattern markings (as seen in the pic immediately above it) to show the colour of the hair shafts...

Tigra:






Azlan:





Zion:





I've looked very closely, and I can't see any banding at all in the hairs in Zion's spots. They really are jet black from root to tip (in contrast to what Elaine was saying about lighter undercoats seen even on black domestic cats), unlike lighter areas where the banding is obvious. This is why it fascinated me so much. I remember Gaynor telling me his markings were "black to the skin" ages before I collected him. I had NO appreciation for what she was talking about until I brought him home even then it took me a couple days before I noticed the striking difference between him and the SBTs coats.

It really is quite striking as you can see such an obvious difference when you stroke him compared to stroking the others. Although it would be truly astonishing if he was clear coated, as he is quite ticked.

Also no worries Shantra, I previously said I was very interested in the basis of the range of different colours - so what you posted was completely related to that question also - although to a great extent we HAVE gone of the subject of genetics which I apologise for, as I think we've established we don't know the genetic/epigenetic basis for this.... but I'm pretty sure this is the same as what you would see in that Leopard and Jaguar also.

Is this seen in many Bengals? I've never noticed it before. I never noticed it on my previous F2 boy, but then I wasn't looking for it back then...

_________________
with best wishes

Tim and the Family Feline

Tigra, Azlan, Bilbo and Zion

Shantra,

The Cinnamon is a recessive gene bl, so if both your cat's parents carried the gene, then assuming they were both normal brown spotted Bengals they must have been Bbl. If bred to other Bengals then that fact may never have surfaced, as no Cinnamons would have been produced.
The fact that they both carried this gene means that your cat was born.
Cinnamon is not an accepted colour in Bengals, so it is not desirable as regards breeding them, so most breeders would try and breed away from it.

It is not that they are not stunning cats, it is just that the colour is not really applicable to the "small forest dwelling cat" that is referred to in the Bengal standard. It is the same with blue, chocolate, lilac, fawn, caramel and other non standard colours.

Ok I literally just got this other one of Zion now he is sleeping..... You can see the difference between the hairs in his black spots and his lighter acerage in this one:

_________________
with best wishes

Tim and the Family Feline

Tigra, Azlan, Bilbo and Zion

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Shantra

The genes for pattern are carried seperately from the genes for colour. So Sakura's parents could have been cinnamon themselves or cinnamon carriers & they could have also been marble or marble carriers. Or one parent could have been & one could have just been a carrier...hope that makes sense! As the genes for both traits are recessive, they could be carried for many generations without surfacing until paired with another cat that carries for it.

With the marbles, Jean Mill (the founder of the breed)'s original vision was to create a "lounge leopard" rather than a small forest dwelling cat. She originally had nothing in the standard but spotted until she produced her first marble & as it was something so unique & different to any of the domestic patterns, she adjusted the standard to allow for it.
Some still prefer the idea of creating a miniature "big cat" & so the marbling is reflective of a clouded leopard or king cheetah. There is also a small species of wild cat called a marble cat.
Some others of us aren't intending to reproduce another cat in particular, but instead are trying to create something which is completely unique, unlike any other cat either wild or domestic but there is a long way to go

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Shantra

_________________
with best wishes

Tim and the Family Feline

Tigra, Azlan, Bilbo and Zion