Coat Color
Charcoal (Discovered in the Bengal)
The Charcoal pattern presents as a dark face mask with a darkly shaded stripe on the back known as a dorsal stripe or "cape."
More Info
Did you know?
The Bengal was the first domestic cat breed to show a spotted coat patterning known as rosettes, similar to the markings of the jaguar, leopard, and ocelot. The Charcoal variant, which can give the already striking coat of a Bengal its unevenly darkened appearance, was inherited from the Asian Leopard Cat.
How it works
Cats with one copy of the Charcoal variant and one copy of the Solid Color variant will display the charcoal coat pattern.
Prevalence
1 in 32 cats
has one or more copy of this genetic variant in our testing.
Technical Details
| Gene | ASIP |
|---|---|
| Variant | A>G |
| Chromosome | A3 |
| Coordinate | 25,086,548 |
All coordinates reference FelCat9.0
References & Credit
Credit to our scientific colleagues:
Gershony, L. C., Penedo, M. C. T., Davis, B. W., Murphy, W. J., Helps, C. R., & Lyons, L. A. (2014). Who’s behind that mask and cape? the Asian leopard cat’s Agouti (ASIP) allele likely affects coat colour phenotype in the Bengal cat breed. Animal Genetics, 45(6), 893–897. View the article