Tribble Tribbles ( " Polygeminus grex " ) were small , non - intelligent lifeform s originating from Iota Geminorum IV . Known for their prodigious reproductive rate , these round , fur ry creatures emitted cooing sounds while touched , which had a tranquilizing effect on the Human nervous system . Biology . On their own , tribbles are quite incapable of directly harming sentient beings - they do not even possess " teeth " as such . They are also fairly slow . Nonetheless , if their population growth is left unchecked they can rapidly multiply and devastate entire ecosystems on a planetary scale . ( ; ) Fully half of a tribble ' s entire metabolism is devoted to reproduction . Born pregnant , a single tribble with sufficient food can quickly increase its number exponentially through asexual reproduction , bearing an average litter of ten every twelve hours . Tribbles are hermaphroditic , possessing both male and female reproductive organs , which makes them capable of self - fertilizing at will . Given sufficient food supply , a single tribble can give rise to progeny numbering up to 100 , 000 in two days . On their homeworld , tribble populations were kept in check by a large number of reptilian predators . ( ; ; ) History . Tribbles were first encountered by Humans in the early 2150s when Denobulan doctor Phlox brought a small number aboard as an easily sustainable food source for his pet s . ( ) By 2256 , a book discussing tribbles existed , entitled " " . ( ) That same year , aboard the , Captain had a pet tribble that he kept in his ready room . Lorca ' s laboratory had a dissected tribble as well . ( ) A few tribbles were brought aboard the Federation starbase Deep Space K - 7 in 2268 , when Cyrano Jones brought a small number aboard to trade . However , a single tribble brought aboard the quickly multiplied . The tribbles were instrumental in foiling a Klingon plan to poison a shipment of quadrotriticale intended for Sherman ' s Planet , when those that had fed on the grain were found dead . ( ) At the same time , the crew of , transported through time by Arne Darvin , prevented him from using a tricobalt device hidden inside a tribble to kill James T . Kirk . ( ) Tribbles were an ecological menace for the Klingons , to whom a tribble would react violently . The Klingons first attempted to breed a predator to eliminate the threat . The glommer was used only once , in 2269 , aboard the USS " Enterprise , " and proved unable to deal with the large number of tribbles aboard . ( ) During this time , Cyrano Jones attempted to genetically engineer the tribbles so that they would not reproduce . As a result of his dabbling , he deemed them to be " safe " so as to be compatible with humanoid ecologies , making them " great pets and profitable , too . " Unknown to Jones , at the time , and as was later discovered by Doctor Leonard McCoy , Jones ' genetic engineering was described as being " very slipshod , " as the resulting tribbles appeared to grow in immense size , instead of rapid breeding . McCoy later discovered that the so - called " giant tribbles " really were not as they appeared , but rather colonies of tribbles . McCoy was able to remedy the situation by giving them " a simple shot " of neoethylene , which caused the tribble colonies to break down into their individual units with a slower metabolic rate , and finally becoming " safe tribbles . " ( ) The Café des Artistes included tribbles as an ingredient in one of their dishes . ( ) The Klingons ' solution to the tribble menace was to wipe the species out entirely . Klingon warriors were sent to hunt them down throughout the galaxy , and the tribble homeworld was obliterated in the late 23rd century . When told of this , Odo dryly remarked , " " Another glorious chapter in Klingon history . Tell me , do they still sing songs of the Great Tribble Hunt ? " " ( ) In spite of the destruction of the tribble homeworld , many Humans continued to have the small creatures as pets from the late 23rd century , well into the late 24th century , as one child aboard the appeared to have one as a pet in 2371 . ( ; ) Information about tribbles was displayed by the computer in Keiko O ' Brien ' s school room on Deep Space 9 in 2369 . ( ) Tribbles were displayed in an LCARS graphic in one of the USS " Enterprise " - D ' s science laboratories when the ship crash - landed on Veridian III in 2371 . ( ) Tribbles were reintroduced into the 24th century when Captain Benjamin Sisko and his crew brought at least one of the creatures back to 2373 , following a time - traveling visit to the tribble - infested space station K - 7 of 2268 . The Promenade and Quark ' s Bar on Deep Space 9 were subsequently overrun with the creatures . According to Captain Sisko , the Federation ' s Department of Temporal Investigations was not told about the reintroduction of the tribbles because " they didn ' t ask . " ( ) Miles O ' Brien later recalled seeing the tribbles on the " Enterprise " with Julian Bashir when he was leaving Deep Space 9 at the end of the Dominion War . ( ) Alternate reality . In the alternate reality , had a tribble at his station on the Delta Vega outpost in 2258 . ( ) A year later , Dr . injected the blood of into the necrotic tissue of a dead tribble , in order to test the regenerative properties of the blood . A little while later , shortly after the death of , Khan ' s blood resurrected the tribble in front of a stunned McCoy . McCoy then ordered Khan captured alive so that his blood could be used to the same effect on Kirk . ( ) Appendices . Background information . The homeworld and scientific name of the tribbles appeared on the chart in Keiko O ' Brien ' s classroom on Deep Space 9 . The chart artwork , contributed by DS9 art department illustrator Doug Drexler , are the same component illustrations he had originally prepared for the fan - published Star Fleet Medical Reference Manual in 1976 , then reprinted in 1978 as a licensed book by Ballantine . The story " The Trouble with Tribbles " was intended to tell was writer David Gerrold ' s re - interpretation of the rabbit population explosion in Australia . The now - apocryphal " Star Fleet Medical Reference Manual " refers to this event too , connecting it with the " k ' nurt " blight on Vulcan and the destruction caused by tribbles on Sherman ' s Planet , in the text " quoting " the data on " Parasites " from Volume 17 of the " Star Fleet Guide To Alien Life . " In the audio commentary for " More Tribbles , More Troubles , " David Gerrold explains that the idea for tribbles came from a fuzz - ball keychain owned by a college girlfriend of his , named Holly Sherman ( for whom Sherman ' s Planet is named ) . He also mentions that Wah Chang hired a woman named Jacqueline Cumere to make five hundred tribbles for " The Trouble with Tribbles , " and explains the procedure for making them . He had previously so explained in his autobiographical book " The Trouble With Tribbles : The Birth , Sale , And Final Production Of One Episode " . This book also described his fears of having plagiarized the Martian Flat Cat from " The Rolling Stones " , written by Robert A . Heinlein , and noted that Ande Richardson , operational producer Gene L . Coon ' s secretary , had both eased that worry and relayed Heinlein ' s request ( which was granted ) for a copy of the script . Tribbles are made from a piece of " figure - eight shaped " fake fur , sewn up to make a ball about five inches in diameter . The ball is filled with foam rubber ; some tribbles were made by sewing a decapitated walking toy dog inside the fur skin , and the toy activated to make the tribble crawl , as revealed in a DVD text commentary by Michael and Denise Okuda for " The Trouble with Tribbles . " Gerrold ' s afore - mentioned book , in the chapter " Tribble - Making , " had previously described the procedure . Sound Editor Douglas Grindstaff was involved in creating the noises made by the tribbles . Producer Gene Roddenberry first showed Grindstaff a tribble prop and they discussed how they should tackle the creation of the different sounds made by the creatures . There had to be sounds for their various moods , such as for a very comfortable tribble as well as a fearful or disapproving tribble , rearing up and away from someone it didn ' t like . There also had be sounds for different quantities of tribbles . " " I found a dove ' coo , ' I flipped the track over , and shaved off part of it with a razor blade , " " Grindstaff recollected . " " I then made a loop out of it , put it on a variable speed machine , and changed the pitch of it to different frequencies . Then I chose those frequencies I liked the best and decided which ones I would use in each spot . I then went to a screech owl for the sound of the tribble rearing up , took the screech owl and played with it and got variations of it . Then I took a bunch of little balloon sounds , where you ' d get a balloon and rub it , and we mixed that with other little squeaky sounds that we had in the library , playing with all these at variable speeds , mixing them and making new sounds out of them , and putting them all together until we came up with the various composite sounds used throughout the whole show . " " ( " The Star Trek Interview Book " , p . 236 ) Following the making of " The Trouble with Tribbles , " tribble props were repeatedly found around the set of " Star Trek " s . Commented DeForest Kelley : " " We ' d had these tribbles everywhere . They had them in the prop room and they kept showing up here and there for weeks after we filmed the episode . A tribble might show up as an extra breast on Nichelle [ Nichols ] or something like that . I guess everybody was still kind of tribble happy and every time we got to work a tribble in somewhere , we were working them in . Instead of pulling out a communicator , somebody would pull out a tribble . They ' d continually pop up somewhere . Pull out a drawer and somebody would reach for something and there ' d be a tribble there [ . . . ] It took weeks to get all the tribbles off the set . " " Kelley also remembered that – in a scene of an episode that he reckoned was " probably " , where his character of Dr . McCoy was meant to be making a surgical incision in another character – he ( as Dr . McCoy ) apparently removed a tribble from the patient after making the incision , an action that provoked much laughter on the set . ( " The World of Star Trek " , 3rd ed . , p . 86 ) Having appeared as Klingon captain Koloth in " The Trouble with Tribbles , " actor William Campbell was made aware of how extremely popular the tribbles were with fans . " " The actors weren ' t really the stars of the show , those little animals were , " " Campbell opined . " " They really intrigued whoever watched it . One little girl even made a tribble and sent it to me . " " ( " The World of Star Trek " , 3rd ed . , p . 121 ) Another homemade tribble was created for Terry Farrell by her grandmother , during her childhood , long before she portrayed Jadzia Dax in " ; " a frequent viewer of TOS , Farrell kept her tribble toy in her bedroom , by a television set . ( ) Director Joseph Pevney once speculated that , if tribbles had been proposed to make their debut appearance during the third season of the original series rather than the second , the idea would have been rejected , due to the regular cast becoming increasingly concerned about being seen as the heroes of the series . Pevney argued , " " The hero of the show was a little fuzzy animal , and they don ' t want that . They want to constantly be the heroes . " " ( " " , p . 48 ) In " More Tribbles , More Troubles , " the tribbles appear pink in color . Unknown to the rest of the production staff , the director , Hal Sutherland , was color - blind , so to him , pink was light gray . According to the audio commentary for , David Wise mentions that for Kukulkan ' s zoo , " " If you were to read the original script , we had animals , various life forms from earlier episodes of the live action Star Trek . There was a tribble , a couple of tribbles in one cage , there was a Horta from " Devil in the Dark " [ sic ] in another cage , they were supposed to be reference , the various menagerie of characters who had appeared in earlier " Star Trek " s . " " Harve Bennett once characterized the tribbles in " Star Trek III " as " Christmas stocking presents to the fans " and went on to say , " " That ' s , ' Hey , kids , you came to see the movie , here ' s a treat , it ' s our joke . " " ( " The Star Trek Interview Book " , p . 271 ) In the first draft script of , " " Oh , tribbles " " was an exclamation uttered by Wesley Crusher . ( " " , p . 69 ) An edible tribble was designed to be ripped open as a snack by one of the Klingon guards on Rura Penthe in , filled with gummy worms and tapioca " guts , " but it was not seen in the movie , as it was thought to be too disgusting . A scepter that Rura Penthe ' s commandant carries has fur that was scripted to be from a tribble . ( " The Making of the Trek Films " , 3rd ed . , p . 129 ) Some of the most memorable ways in which tribbles are featured in were devised by DS9 writing staffer Ronald D . Moore . These ideas included tribbles being tossed out of the storage compartment bin from " The Trouble with Tribbles " by one of the DS9 crew – hitting Kirk on the head with them – and another tribble actually being what is more - or - less a disguised bomb . ( " " , p . 384 ) In the first draft script of " Trials and Tribble - ations " , a hypothetical evolutionary link was made between tribbles and Trill symbiont s , as some xenobiologists had apparently theorized that tribbles were " distant evolutionary cousins to Trill symbionts . " " The tribble props for " Trials and Tribble - ations " were obtained from Lincoln Enterprises before it became the " Store " section of Roddenberry . com . Prop master Joe Longo later recalled , " " We bought 1 , 400 . . . . [ They ] only had about 600 there and had to make up some more – it took two weeks . And then we had to make up some in Drapery ; we didn ' t have enough of the large ones . " " ( ) DS9 special effects supervisor Gary Monak and his team of live effects artists at Paramount were tasked with matching the actions of operable tribble props in " Trials and Tribble - ations " with the equivalent props of thirty years beforehand . This was despite the fact that the DS9 episode features more moving tribbles than there are in " The Trouble with Tribbles " . Reported Monak , " " We ' re having about 50 different moving ones made up ; they ' re all pretty much like crawlers or wigglers , the one that ' s supposed to jump when it sees Klingons is a remote control one we ' ve made . " " The workings inside the latter prop consisted of a variable - speed wheel with an off - center gearing . ( ) Worf actor Michael Dorn hated tribbles , much like how his own Klingon character felt about the species . " " It ' s just this whole cute thing , " " Dorn expressed in disgust . " " It just drives me up a wall . " " ( " Cinefantastique , " Vol . 32 , Nos . 4 / 5 , p . 93 ) Tribbles were mentioned in a treatment in which J . Michael Straczynski and Bryce Zabel outlined their plans for a reboot " Star Trek " TV series that ultimately went undeveloped . In the document , the tribbles were once again depicted as encountering the " Enterprise " , Captain Kirk , and the rest of the ship ' s crew , though in a new story . The treatment also pondered about the creatures , " " What if they came equipped with an agenda , an attitude . . . and teeth ? " " Writer / producer Roberto Orci once claimed that , at least to Humans , tribbles are " potentially poisonous , like blow fish ( a common reference to the fishes properly called " puffers , " some species of which are toxic ) . " The tribble in the film was operated by remote control , used by a production staffer standing just out of the camera ' s line of sight . ( / Three disc Blu - ray documentary featurette " To Boldly Go " ) Similarly , the tribble in was a puppet operated by Director J . J . Abrams , from under a table which the tribble sat on . ( enhanced commentary , & " " DVD special features ) A tribble was included in at the request of Akiva Goldsman . Two tribble fur balls were sold in the " " auction for US $ 4 , 800 . The lot had been estimated to bring in only between US $ 800 and US $ 1 , 200 . These tribbles were made for the DS9 outing " Trials and Tribble - ations " and were also used in the bazaar scene in . The condition of being born pregnant occurs in some existing Earth species through the phenomenon of . Apocrypha . According to the " Star Fleet Medical Reference Manual " , the mutual dislike between Klingons and tribbles has to do with the fact that both species have keen senses of smell , and apparently , each found the " stench " of the other extremely unpleasant . Tribbles also found food using their sense of smell . A promotion for the photonovel ' in the back of the previous book , ' , describes tribbles as being between three and seven inches long . According to FASA ' s " The Federation " sourcebook , tribbles are native to the planet Jorindas , which is the fourth planet in the Beta Vertis system . In , when McCoy gives Kirk a birthday present , Kirk ( under the influence of Romulan ale ) asks , " " . . . is it a tribble ? ! " " In the TNG novel " Q - in - Law " , Q taunts Worf by offering him a tribble as a present . Worf shares most Klingons ' instinctive loathing of the creatures , a fact later confirmed in . In the DS9 novel " The Big Game " , Odo does not allow a tribble to be brought onto Deep Space 9 until it is confirmed to be sterile . In " Star Trek Online " , the tribbles ' tranquilizing effect on the nervous system is used as a healing factor during gameplay . They can also be bred by introducing them to various foodstuffs , giving the player access to different subspecies of tribbles that bestow different benefits . They also seem to spontaneously breed if there is at least one in the player ' s inventory and a food source is available . Special tribbles have become a common reward for either testing major updates ( called seasons ) or , more recently , logging onto the game near the beginning of a season . These tribbles typically give buffs against a major enemy of the season . The game ' s test server is named Tribble . The virtual collectible card battle game " " has a tribble from Iota Geminorum IV as card # 1 . In the video game " " , tribbles are found in various places that Kirk and Spock travel . Scotty also recounts a story in his commentary about an outbreak of tribbles at Starfleet Academy .