Bengals & Ocicats

I went to a (CFA) cat show this past Saturday and loved seeing all of the Ocicats there. I first thought that they were Bengals and then one of the owners told me they were Ocicats and that Bengals were not in CFA. What is the difference between these two breeds (they look so similar to me) and why are Bengals not in CFA? I'm just really curious.

Bengals have a hard uphill climb in CFA. CFA does not like the breeds that mix the wild cats into the pedigree. So you will see none of those types of cats. TICA is a lot more accepting of breeds that mix wild cats into the background.

Ocicats are man made from established DOMESTIC breeds - mainly the abysinian, siamese, american sh (I think thats the breeds). They are a lot smaller when grown then the bengals. The ocicats also have nice round spots - sorta like the egyptian maus.

The bengals spots are supposed to look more like the wild cats.

Originally Posted by TiffanyL

I went to a (CFA) cat show this past Saturday and loved seeing all of the Ocicats there. I first thought that they were Bengals and then one of the owners told me they were Ocicats and that Bengals were not in CFA. What is the difference between these two breeds (they look so similar to me) and why are Bengals not in CFA? I'm just really curious.

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CFA doesn't allow any hybrid breeds. In this case hybrid, meaning mixed with a wild breed. Bengals are descendant from the Asian Leopard Cat. If you really look closely, most bengals look completely different from ocicats. The head structure, body build, color and pattern are distinctly different. Bengals also come in a variety of patterns: Spotted, Rosetted and Marbled. And also a variety of colors: Brown, Seal Mink, Seal Sepia, Seal Lynx, Silver, Blue and Melanistic.