Jean Sudgen (Jean Sudgen Mill) is the first person known to have deliberately crossed a domestic female with an Asian Leopard cat. There were other breeders at this time who also achieved results from similar breeding but no record of any of the kittens from this time survives. Unfortunately Jean’s work was halted when she became a widow and it did not resume again until 1970. At this time Dr W Centerwall was producing Asian Leopard Hybrid crosses because of his interest in the ALC’s lack of the feline leukemia genome in its DNA structure. This gives it a natural immunity to feline leukemia and he wanted to see if this was then passed on to lower generation kittens. He gave Jean eight of these Hybrid crosses and her work began again.

Jean registered the cats with TICA in 1983 and they were first exhibited in 1985. They were very wildly admired and gathered a great deal of interest. Other breeders who were also producing ALC hybrids also began to register with TICA and so the breed took off. The domestic Bengal derives its name from the Latin name of its wild ancestor, Felis Bengalensis (Asian Leopard Cat).