Star Trek's Sci-Fi Pets & Animals

When we think of warping into space along with the starship Enterprise's Captain Kirk (William Shatner), Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) or sentient android Data, we inevitably think 'new lifeforms' and awe inspiring planets full of mysterious aliens, and wondrous movie magic. We don't usually think pets. However, the Star Trek TV shows and movies are full of purring cats, adorable dogs, colorful fish, along with a few odd beasties much too weird for words.

Targ - Star Trek: The Next Generation

If you could reclaim any long lost pet from your childhood, what would that animal be? What would it look like? For Klingon warrior and Starfleet officer Worf, his boyhood pet was a Targ - a kind of pissed off pig or burly boar like creature from his home planet.

These scruffy looking things, to humans anyway, appear pretty darned nasty, ugly and even smelly. However, Klingons love to raise them for livestock as well as to keep them as pets. In the TNG episode, Where No One Has Gone Before, a Targ appears on the starship bridge, much to Worf's surprised delight. It quickly disappears owing to effects of a weird space time energy zone, but before it zips out of our sight, we get a first taste of just the kind of pet Klingons keep.

Livingston - Lionfish - Star Trek: The Next Generation

Captain Jean-Luc Picard is fond of reciting the Bard - William Shakespeare - and keeping tropical fish. He has both in his starship ready room, on the bridge of the Enterprise-D.

Picard (Patrick Stewart) is a keenly well read man, and lover of the classics, and it seems he's also a fan of exotic pets. Livingston, a lion fish, was kept in the corner of the ready room set, in a large spherical aquarium. The fish character made it through all seven seasons of the TV show.

Sehlat - I-Chaya - Star Trek: The Animated Series

Vulcans are a highly logical race. Is it logical to keep dangerous pets around children? With six inch fangs, Sehlats are inherently dangerous, yet one was kept by a Vulcan boy named Spock.

The teddy bear like domesticated creature named I-Chaya was so old, he had also belonged to Spock's father Sarek, when he was a child. In the animated series tale, Yesteryear, I-Chaya plays a central, and very dramatic role. The script was penned by veteran TOS writer D.C. Fontana.

Porthos - Earth Beagle - Star Trek: Enterprise

Porthos is one spoiled space tripping puppy. Captain Archer (Scott Bakula) loves giving cheese to this dog, who promptly devours it at every chance he gets.

Cheeky cheese addict Porthos appeared in 43 Enterprise episodes - including the pilot and the series finale These Are The Voyages.

Leonard - Holographic Iguana - Star Trek: Voyager

Do holographic iguanas dream of holographic insects? On Star Trek: Voyager, holographic master scientist Dr. Lewis Zimmerman keeps a pet iguana - but one composed purely of photonic energy.

Though not known for sure, it's possible that Leonard was chosen as a nod to Leonard Nimoy (Spock) or Dr. Leonard McCoy (Deforest Kelly).

Tribbles - The Trouble With Tribbles

What's furry, eats all the time and purrs hypnotically? No, not Garfield the comic strip cat. Tribbles!

These intergalactic fuzzballs - Chewbacca don't be jealous - were first seen in the original series episode The Trouble With Tribbles. Since then, they've appeared in the animated Star Trek TV show, several of the movies and the last Star Trek series - Enterprise. Writer, David Gerrold, creator of the adorable, but potentially destructive creatures, got the idea for the furry gluttons from his college girlfriend's fuzzball keychain.

Spot - House Cat - Star Trek: The Next Generation

Felix Catus, is your taxonomic nomenclature an endothermic quadruped carnivorous by nature? So went the quirky little poem that Lt. Commander Data (Brent Spiner) wrote for his little cat Spot in the TNG episode, Schisms. The cat would appear in many episodes, and in Genesis, Spot would provide the answer to the devolution problem plaguing the transformed, bestial Enterprise crew.

Over on station Deep Space Nine, or Terok Nor for you DS9 purists out there, Miles O'Brien (Colm Meaney) also kept a pet. Not to be outdone by his former android shipmate in the feline lovers department, O'Brien had a cat named Chester.

Sources

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Tribble
www.startrek.com

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Leonard