Does a Bengal Cat Have Blue Eyes?
Bengal cats have grown in popularity, mainly because they have extremely detailed, beautiful, and colorful coats that can come in a variety of different colors. However, some Bengal cats are most renowned for the colors of their eyes. While Bengal cats will have an eye color that can range from bright green gold, yellow, and occasionally, depending upon the particular breed of the Bengal cat, icy blue. For a Bengal cat to have icy blue eyes, they are going to have to be of the ‘Snow’ variety, as these blue eyes are specific to them. And while you wouldn’t really think it, there is actually a lot that goes into getting this particular eye color.
Why Are Snow Bengal Cats the Only Ones Who Have Blue Eyes?
While it is true that the Snow Bengal cats are the only variety of Bengal cats that can have blue eyes, they all are not going to have them. In fact, of the three different varieties of Snow Bengal cats, only the Seal Lynx point Bengal cat is going to be guaranteed to have these icy blue eyes. This is due in part to the domestic cat that was originally bred with the Asian Leopard Cat, was a Siamese cat. And if you didn’t know, Siamese cats will naturally have blue eyes, meaning that when they are bred to make Bengal cats, this is one of the traits that is passed along to the Bengal cat litter produced.
Depending upon what type of domestic cat was used in the breeding is able to give the Bengal cats so many potentially interesting traits. Because of the amount of diversity that is among Bengal cats, the attributes that they display are a big part of why they are bred and so highly sought after. In fact, you can put two Bengal cats next to each other who come from different ancestry and they can be completely different from each other, the only similarity being that they each share the traits for an Asian Leopard Cat.
The blue-eyed Bengal cats are an excellent and highly visual example of how there can be potential variations among Bengal cats. Their blue eyes have been inherited from their Siamese ancestors, whether it happened during the very first breeding with a domestic cat and Sian Leopard Cat, or if it happened with a later introduction of domestic cat into the filial line.
Why Are Blue-Eyed Bengal Cats so Rare?
You may be wondering, why not just start breeding Bengal cats with Siamese cats? While the answer to this question is that having blue eyes is a recessive gene, the real reason there are not more blue-eyed Bengal cats is because it is very hard to keep it prevalent while breeding them.
For a Bengal cat breeder to do this, they are going to have to breed the Bengal cats with the sole purpose of having kittens that have the blue-eyed gene. That is why blue-eyed Bengal cats are so rare.
