hey luckies, while your way of introducing Simba to everyone was unusual (pretending he was part bobcat), you did make the point that most of us know little about Bengals. I looked at the native wild cats and concluded he most closely resembled a small ocelot or margay, not bobcat.

when you revealed that Simba is a Bengal (after a couple pages of fooling), I looked up the breed in my Book of Cats, Reader's Digest 1992. thought people might find this interesting as I did.

"The Bengal is a hybrid, the result of crossing domestic cats with the Asian leopard, Felis prionailurus bengalensis, from which the name is derived...this large and powerful cat possesses a long and very muscular body; males can weigh up to 22 pounds...Bengals became eligible for show competitions in 1991.

"The first hybrids were created in 1963 (Leopard Cat x Domestic Shorthair)...the first kittens were bred with another spotted cat, the Egyptian Mau...The Bengal we know today was created in the late 1970s by Jean Mills of Covina, California. She obtained 8 female cross-bred cats from a U of California researcher...and mated them with two very different male cats: a feral orange domestic cat with deep brown spots, and a brown- spotted tabby shorthair from an animal shelter in Los Angeles. Some 10 years later there were 200 Bengals in the US and the breed was recognised by TICA.

"The Bengal is not as vocal as some other breeds, but its voice is strangely reminiscent of a wild animal"s call...take care when choosing a kitten, temperments vary...'agressive behavior that threatens to harm' is a disqualifying fault in competition."