Short Stuff: Bengal Cats

Bengal cats are gorgeous animals, but they are bought and sold on the designer pet market, so booo. Learn about these hybrid kitties today. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.

• 0:04Josh Clark?

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• 0:39Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, there's Chuck, Jerry's here too, Dave's not, but Jerry's here for Dave. You know, the whole rigamarole. It's time for short stuff, so let's go. Meow. So Chuck, I'm glad you did that because I think that was a really great segue into this episode on a specific kind of cats.

• 0:59Speaker 02

  That's right. We're talking about the Bengal cat. If you've ever seen a Bengal cat, or if you look up a picture online now, when it's safe, it looks like a cross between a leopard and a house cat, because that's what it is.

• 1:14Josh Clark?

  Yeah, full stop. I mean, it's kind of nuts, but there is a small wild leopard cat out there in Southern and Eastern Asia.

• 1:24Josh Clark?

  Pryona ilurus bengalensis. Bengalensis. I think I had it in there somewhere. Maybe Jerry can chop all that up and edit it into the correct pronunciation. But it's a tiny little cat that looks a lot like a leopard, and it is a wild cat. It's not a leopard, it's not even related to the leopard, but it's one half of this type of hybridized breed of cats that people keep as pets today.

• 1:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, that people pay a lot of money for.

• 1:53Josh Clark?

  Oh, I imagine so.

• 1:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, they are very willful, athletic cats, and we'll kind of get to their behavior later, but let's go back about 6 million years. To talk about how cats came to be, there were a couple of groups of felines that parted ways. There was a very, you know, just sort of a regular, small-bodied cat that was eventually the common ancestor of both of these groups. One became the one that you talked about. The Pryonilarius.

• 2:28Speaker 02

  Nope.

• 2:29Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I mean, that was closer than I thought.

• 2:30Speaker 02

  Brianelurus.

• 2:31Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 2:32Speaker 02

  Maybe.

• 2:33Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 2:34Speaker 02

  Bengalinosis. No, Bengalensis.

• 2:37Josh Clark?

  You just did what I do. You added a whole vowel in there.

• 2:41Speaker 02

  Well, why don't you take the next one, because that one's easy.

• 2:43Josh Clark?

  Wild leopard cat.

• 2:45Speaker 02

  Well, no, I meant the other lineage.

• 2:47Josh Clark?

  The house cat, feliscatus.

• 2:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. So those are the two lines. The feliscatus is what we, most of us have in our homes that have cats. But that other one, that leopard cat is, lives in Southern and Eastern Asia. Like you said, it's a wildcat. It prowls the forest and grasslands and stuff like that. And they're not huge. They're six and a half pounds to maybe 15 and a half pounds. And although they look like a leopard, they're, you know, like you said, they're clearly not. They're, they're, they're small by comparison.

• 3:20Josh Clark?

  No, but like a leopard, they're covered in rosettes. That's what leopard spots are called. And then the little, the little plastic things on the end of shoelaces are called aglets. You know those two things?

• 3:30Speaker 02

  Common crossword clue, by the way, aglets.

• 3:32Josh Clark?

  Great. So, yeah, if you know those two things, you don't need to know anything else in the world because they'll just kind of open up all the doors you need from that point on.

• 3:40Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 3:41Josh Clark?

  But rosettes, they're the little patches of fur, the little spots that leopards have. And that's one of the, the main characteristics of the Bengal cat hybrid breed. Do you want to take an early break or do you want to keep going? What do you think?

• 3:56Speaker 02

  I say we keep going. We're only a few minutes in.

• 3:58Josh Clark?

  Okay, well, let's talk about Willard Centrowall then.

• 4:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, this is a guy that is initially responsible for this crossbreed because in 1971, when he was a professor at Loma Linda University in California, he was working on trying to solve feline leukemia. And apparently that Bengal cat is resistant to feline leukemia.

• 4:20Speaker 02

  So he started working with hybridizing these cats to see what he could learn about this scientifically speaking to help save cats.

• 4:28Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and we should say, I mean, there's a lot of people who are very not happy with the idea that people are hybridizing cats and creating designer cat breeds when there's tons of shelter cats that need to be adopted.

• 4:40Speaker 02

  I'm one of them.

• 4:41Josh Clark?

  Yeah, Willard Centrowall, though, he seems to have just, he did this innocently. Like, he wasn't trying to create a new designer breed of cat that he could sell.

• 4:51Speaker 02

  Right.

• 4:51Josh Clark?

  He was doing it for scientific research. Enter another breeder, Jean Mill, who actually was a purposeful breeder of this new hybrid breed of cats, what became the Bengal cat. She collaborated with Centrowall, and she was a conservationist. And that won't make any sense for a little while, but we'll, oh, no, I'll bring it in now. The reason that she, a conservationist, was involved in creating a hybridized cat was because she thought that if you got little cats out there that looked like leopards, it would make people more empathetic toward leopards in the wild and hence would dry up

• 5:33Josh Clark?

  the market for leopard skin coats and may even help conserve wild leopard populations because people adopted like what looked like a little baby leopard at home.

• 5:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it is not lost on us that her last name was Mill. Savior email. And we'll mention one more guy before we break, a breeder named Bill Engler, who was a zookeeper and animal importer, worked a lot with exotic animals. And he had a leopard cat named Shaw in the early 70s, and he breded them and created a bunch of Bengal kittens. And I don't believe this, but people have surmised, because his name was Bill Engler, that the name Bee-Engle came from Bee Engler, but I think it's clearly from that ancient leopard cat's name.

• 6:23Josh Clark?

  So much so that I don't know why people even came up with the other idea.

• 6:27Speaker 02

  Agreed.

• 6:28Josh Clark?

  I think that's break time, huh?

• 6:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, let's do it. We'll be right back.

• 6:48Josh Clark?

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• 6:57Speaker 02

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• 7:10Josh Clark?

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• 7:26Speaker 02

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• 7:48Speaker 03

  First thought is like, wow, how are we going to do all this?

• 7:51Josh Clark?

  Hey, this is Josh and Chuck from Stuff You Should Know.

• 7:54Speaker 02

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• 8:10Speaker 03

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• 8:18Josh Clark?

  That includes field services manager Drexel Jones. His team made sure it all came together and held up on game day.

• 8:24Speaker 04

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• 8:41Josh Clark?

  AT&T, connecting fans to what they love.

• 8:44Speaker 00

  Connecting changes everything. AT&T.

• 9:03Speaker 02

  So these cats, even though I'm completely against this kind of thing and selling pets like this at like for two grand a pop, they're amazing looking. They're incredible. They're gorgeous little tiny leopards. The rosettes can take various forms. They can be kind of pointy. They can kind of look like arrowheads. They can be more circular. They can look like paw prints. The marble coated Bengal is one of the coolest looking cats I've ever seen. But again, I don't want to sound like I'm endorsing this kind of thing, you know?

• 9:38Josh Clark?

  No, but I mean, like, these things do exist and they are beautiful to look at. And they do seem like pretty interesting cats as far as cats go, their personalities and what they demand from you. I was gonna say require, but it seems like a demand. They're also different colored, they have different colored coats beneath their rosettes too, all the way up to white, which imitates snow leopard. So it looks like a mini baby snow leopard essentially running around your house. They also have like brown, golden, charcoal gray, silverish, and all these different rosette combinations with different coat combinations means that there's an infinite variety of Bengal kittens just waiting to be bred.

• 10:22Speaker 02

  Yeah. They are muscular. They're very athletic. Apparently their hind legs are a little taller than the shoulders, so they look even a little different than your regular house cat. They weigh just sort of like the ones in the wild, eight to 15 pounds, which is, can be small for a cat. And they're, like I said, they're very energetic. They like to take walks. They don't lay around and sleep all day like other cats, apparently. They like to swim, which is very unique for cats, right?

• 10:49Josh Clark?

  Yeah, they're into water-related activities like swimming, showering with their owners.

• 10:55Speaker 02

  Water skiing?

• 10:56Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I had wakeboarding, but yes, either one works.

• 10:59Speaker 02

  Oh, no. I stepped on it. That was even better.

• 11:01Josh Clark?

  I stepped on yours too, so, there you go.

• 11:03Speaker 02

  Although knee boarding, a knee boarding cat, maybe that's the best joke.

• 11:06Josh Clark?

  I thought in knee boarding too. I workshopped it very briefly with myself and said wakeboarding is the way to go. The thing is, is a lot of people buy these things and they're like, oh, this is gonna go with my purse. I'm gonna carry this cat around whenever I have my purse and then probably ignore it the rest of the time I have it. They're buying these cats for their looks essentially, which is, I mean, the kind of, one of the things that they're bred for is their looks. The problem is, even if they're expecting like, this is a cat I'm gonna take care of. Most people are totally unprepared for just how different Bengal cats are from your average cat. Like you said, all the stamina, all the, if they get bored, they're very aggressive.

• 11:48Josh Clark?

  So you don't want them to get bored because just say bye bye to your errands rent furniture. Like you're, like you are, you're, you're in for it if you buy a Bengal cat and take it as your own. It's just going to be way more work than the average cat, which can usually amuse itself. So a lot of people buy two to keep them busy with one another.

• 12:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, uh, yeah. And I guess they have a lot of money because I saw that snow leopard version can go for like two grand.

• 12:17Josh Clark?

  I am surprised that's all.

• 12:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, I guess so.

• 12:21Josh Clark?

  I can see breeders charging way more than that. I'm really surprised.

• 12:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:25Josh Clark?

  That's a value.

• 12:30Speaker 02

  Apparently if they have wild parents or grandparents, it's even worse and they require even more socialization than, you know, which makes sense. Than the ones who are further removed from that wild lineage. And I looked up online because this article from HowStuffWorks, not sure when it was, but it said like Hawaii as a state has put a ban on breeding and ownership. And then, so I looked up and there, there are quite a few states that either have outright bans on ownerships. Or bans on breeding or both, or if they don't have bans, they have a lot of, like cats have a permit and like hoops you have to jump through to get one of these things.

• 13:06Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 13:07Speaker 02

  So, um, yeah, people are kind of standing up and or, you know, cat rescue organizations are obviously standing on their podium and screaming. Like, please don't support this kind of thing. Do not buy hybrid cats.

• 13:19Josh Clark?

  Yeah. If you ever drive, drive past a strip mall and it says cats or puppies or something, kittens on a sign, you want to keep driving.

• 13:27Speaker 02

  Oh, well, unless it's, uh, they're doing like an adoption event on the sidewalk.

• 13:32Josh Clark?

  It's a little different. I'm talking more like a permanent sign that they paint a sign maker to put up like on the shopping center's directory.

• 13:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, I just wanted to draw that distinction because that's what they will often do is set up in front of like Petco or something.

• 13:44Josh Clark?

  Yeah, you and me and I were looking once at a Petco before we got Moe and there was, there were dogs, they had, it was so sad. They had dogs that had all different kinds of special needs or handicaps, kind of sequestered off from the other dogs.

• 14:00Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 14:00Josh Clark?

  And among these dogs, there was a little chihuahua and apparently the only thing unusual about him was that he couldn't retract his tongue. So his tongue was always sticking out and you had to keep his tongue moist.

• 14:12Speaker 02

  It's a bonus.

• 14:13Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it looks super cute. Like it was, that's just always stuck with me.

• 14:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, there's, there's a breed of dog that has that tongue out full time, right?

• 14:22Josh Clark?

  I don't know.

• 14:23Speaker 02

  I think that like the supposedly ugliest dog on earth, that breed, whatever it is, that is like patchy hair and looks kind of crazy and has, I think they have their tongue permanently out.

• 14:34Josh Clark?

  They have a non retractable tongue?

• 14:36Speaker 02

  I guess so. I'll look up, we should do a short stuff on that dog because I don't like calling an animal the ugliest whatever.

• 14:42Josh Clark?

  No, that sounds kind of internet clickbaity, you know?

• 14:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, agreed.

• 14:46Josh Clark?

  All right. Well, I think we're at the end of Bengal cat day.

• 14:49Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 14:50Josh Clark?

  Okay. See you guys. Short stuff's out.