The head is, compared to the long and relatively large body, small, longer than broad with a long forehead. When viewed in profile the nose is straight, there is just a slight concave curve between the eyes, the nose is slightly turning down at the tip. The muzzle is longer and tapered.
The ears are really large, wide at the base, and have the characteristic ocelli-marking like its wild ancestor. The ears are high and close set. The eyes are almond and slanted and low set on the forehead.
The neck is long and graceful.
The body is longer, slender, but full of muscle power, the hip and the thigh are long and somewhat heavy compared to the rest of the body.
The legs are very long and slender, but athletic, and have oval paws with long toes.
The tail is medium long, only slightly tapered and very expressive.

The coat is striking with its spots. The coat is medium short, but lies close to the body, it has a slight coarse texture, while the undercoat is soft.

History

On April 7, 1986 the first litter was born from a crossbreeding of Judee Frank's domestic cat (Siamese) with a Serval. A girl from this litter was named "Savannah", after the habitat of the Serval, by her owner Suzi Wood. Mrs Wood attempted to breed back Savannah to a domestic cat - it turned out that Savannah was fertile, thus Savannah produced a number of F2-litters.
Suzi Wood wrote two articles about Savannah for animal publications. Patrick Kelley got notice from these articles and thus hoped to start a new large domestic breed with a wild spotted look. Patrick Kelley therefore  purchased the only female kitten Savannah had  produced and contacted several breeders of Servals and tried to encourage them to work with him to develop a new breed. At the beginning very few breeders were interested.
Finally he convinced one breeder, Joyce Sroufe, to join him. During this time Kelly's F2 Savannah was bred back to a domestic and produced the first F3 Savannah kittens. Patrick Kelly and Joyce Soufre wrote the original breed standard and presented it to the TICA Board of Directors in February 1996. Today Patrick Kelly’s well-known SavannahCat.com website  is the foremost promoter of the breed on the internet, he has also had much success promoting Savannahs in the "Cat Fancy" magazine.
Joyce Sroufe became a very successful Savannah breeder, often she is credited with being the founder of this breed. Due to Joyce's diligence, continuous hard work and extensive knowledge and skills in cat breeding, she produced more Savannahs at that time than any other breeder and was one of the first breeders to breed down to the later generations and produced fertile males. Joyce Sroufe was also the first who introduced the new breed to the public at a cat show in Westchester, New York in 1997. Her breeding program provided breeding females and fertile males that became the basis for many other Savannah breeding programs.
Another person who has to be mentioned as being of great help in the development of Savannahs as a very successful and popular breed is Lorre Smith, the first TICA Savannah Breed Chair person, whose dedicated efforts helped to progress the Savannahs in TICA more rapidly than any other breed. Due to Lorre Smith's efforts during  a moratorium on hybrid breeds within TICA, this breed was accepted for registration into TICA’s New Breed program in 2001. Lorre Smith worked diligently with other breeders to refine the Savannah Breed Standard and initiated the process to move the Savannah breed through the steps required by TICA towards recognition for Championship status, leading to its acceptance as a true domestic breed.

Temperament

Even F1-generation Savannahs are lovely and handsome companions.
The Savannah has a very warm and affectionate temperament, but hold in mind, it is an active cat, is very fast, can overcome almost any fence and does jump very high. So make sure, your home is childproof, because Savannahs explore everything and like to play with everything. Toys should be tough and sturdy. A Savannah is not an outdoor cat! The cats also like to play with water and do not have shy at water or bath tubs. The cat is like a dog, it likes its owners and follows them wherever they go.

Grooming

The Savannah is an easy-going cat and does not need excessive grooming. But you will do the lustrous coat a great favour, if you brush it periodically, this will keep the coat shiny and will remove dead hairs.

Breeding

For breeding Savannahs Bengals, Egyptian Maus and Ocicat are used, because males of F1-F4 generation are almost always infertile. There are also still used Servals to breed F1-generations to intensify the desired wild spotted look of the Savannah.