Latest / Stuff You Should Know / Short Stuff: Bengal Cats

Transcript

Short Stuff: Bengal Cats · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, there's Chuck.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Jerry's here too. Dave's not, but Jerry's here for Dave.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: You know, the whole rigamar role. It's time for short stuff,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: so let's go. Yeah, so, Chuck, I'm glad you did
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: that because I think that was a really great segue
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: into this episode on a specific kind of.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Cats, that's right, we're talking about the Bengal cat. If
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: you've ever seen a Bengal cat, or if you look
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: up a picture online now when it's safe, it looks
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: like a cross between a leopard and a house cat,
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: because that's what it is.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, full stop. I mean, it's kind of nuts, but
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: there is a small wild leopard cat out there in
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: southern and Eastern Asia, Priona ilrius bengalisis bengalensis. I got
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: it in there somewhere. Maybe Jerry can chop all that
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: up and edit it into the correct pronunciation. But it's
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: a tiny little cat that looks a lot like a leopard,
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: and it is a wild cat. It's not a leopard.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: It's not even related to the leopard, but it's one
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: half of this type of hybridized breed of cats. That
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: people keep as pets today.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that people pay a lot of money for I imagine. So, yeah,
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: they are very wilful, athletic cats, and we'll kind of
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: get to their behavior later. But let's go back about
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: six million years to talk about how cats came to be.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: There were a couple of groups of felines that that
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: parted ways. There was a very you know, just sort
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: of a regular, small bodied cat that was eventually the
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: common ancestor of both of these groups. One became the
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: one that you talked about, the Prionelaris. Nope, yeah, I
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: mean those close touris. Okay, maybe Bengalensis. No, Bengalensis.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: You just did what I do. You added a whole
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: bowel in there.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: Well, why don't you take the next one because that.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: One's easy wild leopard cat.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: Well, no, I meant the other lineage.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: The house cat Felis cattus.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. So those are the two lines. The Felis
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: cattus is what we most of us have in our
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: home set have cats. But that other one, that leopard
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: cat is lives in southern and eastern Asia. Like you said,
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: it's a wild cat. It prowls the forest and grasslands.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: And stuff like that. And they're not huge. They're six
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: and a half pounds to maybe fifteen and a half pounds.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: And although they look like a leopard, they're you know,
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: like you said, they're clearly not they're they're they're small
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: by comparison.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: No, but like a leopard, they're covered in rosettes. That's
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: what leopard spots are called. And then the little the
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: little plastic things on the end of shoelaces are called agltz.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: You know those two.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: Common crossword clue by the way, agletz great.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: But yeah, if you know those two things, you don't
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: need to know anything else in the world because they'll
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: just kind of open up all the doors you need
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: from that point on.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: But rosettes there the little patches of for the little
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: spots that leopards have, and that's one of the main
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: characteristics of the Bengal cat hybrid breed. Do you want
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: to take an early break or do you want to
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: keep going? What do you think?
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: I say, we keep going. We're only a few minutes in.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: Okay, well, let's talk about Willard center Wall. Then.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a guy that is initially responsible for
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: this crossbreed. Because in nineteen seventy one, when he was
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: a professor at Lomlinda University in California, he was working
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: on trying to solve feline leukemia, and apparently that Bengal
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: cat is resistant to feline leukemia. So he started working
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: with hybridizing these cats to see what he could learn
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: about this scientifically speaking, to help save cats.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and we should say, I mean, there's a lot
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: of people who are very not happy with the idea
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: that people are highizing cats and creating designer cat breeds
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: when there's tons of shelter cats that need to be adopted. Wow. Yeah.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: Willard center Wall, though he seems to have just did
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: this innocently, like he wasn't trying to create a new
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: designer breed of cat that he could sell. He was
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: doing it for scientific research. Enter another breeder, Gene Mill,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: who actually was a purposeful breeder of this new hybrid
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: breed of cats what became the Bengal cat. She collaborated
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: with center Wall, and she was a conservationist. And that
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: won't make any sense for a little while, but will
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: I'll bring it in now. The reason that she, a conservationist,
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: was involved in creating a hybridized cat was because she
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: thought that if you got little cats out there that
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: looked like leopards, it would make people more empathetic toward
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: leopards in the wild, and hence would dry up the
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: market for leopard skin coats and may even help conserve
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: wild leopard populations because people adopted like what looked like
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: a little baby leopard at home.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it has not lost on us that her
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: last name was mil Save your email and we'll mention
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: one more guy before we break. A breeder named Bill Engler,
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: who is a zoo keeper and animal importer, worked a
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: lot with exotic animals, and he had a leopard cat
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: named Shah in the early seventies, and he breeded them
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: and created a bunch of Bengal kittens. And I don't
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: believe this, but people have surmised, because his name was
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: Bill Engler, that the name ben Ingele came from b Engler.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: But I think it's clearly from that Asian leopard cat's name, so.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: Much so that I don't know why people even came
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: up with the other idea. Agreed, I think that's break time. Huh, Yeah,
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: let's do it. We'll be right back.
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: So these cats, even though I'm completely against this kind
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: of thing and selling pets like this at like for
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: too grand a pop. They're amazing looking. They're incredible. They're gorgeous,
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: little tiny leopards. The rosettes can take various forms. They
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: can be kind of pointy, they can kind of look
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: like arrowheads. They can be more circular, they can look
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: like pawprints. The marble coated Bengal is one of the
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: coolest looking cats I've ever seen. But again, I don't
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: want to sound like I'm endorsing this kind of thing,
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: you know, no.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: But I mean, like, these things do exist, and they
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: are beautiful to look at, and they do seem like
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: pretty interesting cats as far as cats go, their personalities
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: and what they demand from you. I was gonna say require,
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: but it seems like a demand. They're also different colored.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: They have different colored coats beneath their rosettes too, all
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: the way up to white, which imitates snow leopards, so
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: it looks like a mini baby snow leopard essentially running
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: around your house. They also have like brown, golden, charcoal, gray, silverish,
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: and all these different rosette combinations with different coat combinations
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: means that there's an infinite variety of Bengal kittens just
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: waiting to be bred.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they are muscular, they're very athletic. Apparently their hind
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: legs are a little taller than the shoulder, so they
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: look even a little different than your regular house cat.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: They weigh just sort of like the ones in the wild,
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: eight to fifteen pounds, which is and be small for
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: a cat. And they're, like I said, they're very energetic.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: They like to take walks. They don't lay around and
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: sleep all day like other cats. Apparently they like to swim,
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: which is very unique for cats.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: Right. Yeah, they're into water related activities like swimming, showering
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: with their owners. Yeah I had wakeboarding.
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: But yes I stepped on it. That was even better.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: I stepped on yours too, So there.
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: Although kneboard a knee boarding cat. Maybe that's the best joke.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: I thought in kneeboarding too. I workshopped it very briefly
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: with myself and said wakeboarding, So the way do you go?
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: The thing is is a lot of people buy these
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: things and they're like, uh, it's gonna go with my purse.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna carry this cat around whenever I have my
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: purse and then probably ignore it the rest of the time.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: I have it they're buying these cats for their looks essentially,
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: which is I mean the kind of one of the
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: things that that they're bred for is their looks. The
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: problem is, even if they're expecting, like this is a
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: cat I'm going to take care of, most people are
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: totally unprepared for just how different Bengal cats are from
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: your average cat. Like you said, all the stamina, all
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: the If they get bored, they're very aggressive. So you
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: don't want them to get bored because just say bye
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: bye to your Aaron's rent furniture, right, yeah, Like you're
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: like you are, You're you're in for it. If you
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: buy a Bengal cat and take it as your own,
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: you it's just going to be way more work than
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: the average cat, which can usually amuse itself. So a
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: lot of people buy two to keep them busy with
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: one another.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, uh yeah, And I guess they have a lot
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: of money because I saw that snow leopard version can
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: go for like two grand.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: I'm surprised, that's all.
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess I could.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: See breeders charging way more than that. I'm really surprised. Yeah,
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: that's a value.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: Apparently if they have wild parents or grandparents, it's even
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: worse and they require even more socialization than you know,
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: which makes sense than the ones who are further removed
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: from that wild lineage. And I looked up online because
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: this article from how Stuff Works. I'm not sure when
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: it was, but it said like Hawaii as a state
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: has put a band on breeding and ownership, and then
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: so I looked up and there there are quite a
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: few states that either have outright bands on ownerships or
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: bands on breeding or both, or if they don't have bands,
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: they have a lot of like you have to have
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: a permit and like hoops you have to jump through
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: to get one of these things right. So, yeah, people
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: are kind of standing up and or you know, cat
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: rescue organizations are obviously standing on their podium and screaming like,
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: please don't support this kind of thing. Do not buy
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: hybrid cats.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, if you ever drift drive past a strip mall
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: and it says cats or puppies or something kittens on
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: a sign, you want to keep driving.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: Oh well, unless it's uh they're doing like an adoption
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: event on the sidewalk, it's.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: A little different. I'm talking more like a permanent sign. Yeah, yeah,
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: sign I try to put up like on the shopping
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: centers directory.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah. I just wanted to draw that distinction because
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: that's what they will often do, is set up in
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: front of like pet COO or something.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah you mean. And I were looking once at a
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: pet co before we got MO, and there was there
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: were dogs they had. It was so sad. They had
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: dogs that had all different kinds of special needs or handicaps,
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: kind of sequestered off from the other dogs. And among
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: these dogs there was a little Chihuahua and apparently the
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: only thing unusual about him was that he couldn't retract
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: his tongue, so his tongue was always sticking out and
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: you had to keep a tongue moist. Yeah, it looks
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: super cute like it was. That's just always stuck with me.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, there's there's a breed of dog that
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: has that tongue out full time, right. I don't know that.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: I think that like the supposedly ugliest dog on earth,
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: that breed whatever it is that is like patchy hair
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: and looks kind of crazy and has it. I think
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: they have their tongue permanently out.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: They have a non retractable tongue.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: I guess, so I'll look at should do a short
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: stuff on that dog because I don't like some calling
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: an animal the ugliest whatever.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: No, that sounds kind of Internet clickbaity, you know, Yeah,
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: I agreed. All right, Well I think we're at the
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: end of Bengal cats. Eh. Yes, okay, see you guys,
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: Short Stuff's out.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: Podcasts
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: Or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.