=^= 6.3.1 - Tribble
Created by Captain Lirha Saalm on 07 Aug 2014 @ 4:23pm
Starfleet Medical Database
Tribbles (Polygeminus grex)
Table of Contents:
- Members
- Respiratory System
- Nervous and Execratory System
- Digestive System
- Visual System
- Circulatory System
- Skeletal System
- Reproductive System
- Endocrine System
- Metabolism
- Single morphic and hermaphroditic.
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- A single lung with opening at a spiraculum located on the dorsal side.
- No diaphragm, respiration is by muscular contraction and the attendant coo is due to air moving in and out of the spraculum.
- What is note worthy is that the harmonics of the 'coo' can elicit various states of euphoria in several sentient species. While not known perhaps due to the rather slow nature of movement in this species, it may have evolved as a protective mechanism. This is entirely speculative as the Klingons destroyed the native habitat long ago.
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- Nervous system is simple. The brain is located on the ventral side orientated toward the anterior.
- Tribbles are non-sentient.
- A single functioning kidney is present.
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- The stomach and intestines lie in the ventral area and surprisingly for such a noted eating machine, are rather reduced. Though Tribbles have voracious appetites their diet is actually quite limited in what their systems can handle.
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- No visual system is present. However, Tribbles do posses a parietal eye that is photosensitive.
- This like other creatures possessing such a structure is connected to the epithalamus and probably regulates a circadian rhythm.
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- Tribbles posses an open circulatory system.
- The entire body acts as the heamocoel in which the organs are bathed in the heamolymph.
- The heamolymph is composed primarily of water, dissolved salts, proteins and lipids.
- Heamocytes are present which act as a rudimentary equivalent to immune cells in more specialized creatures.
- Haemocyanin based, the blood is normally colourless as is Terran insects.
- The heat is a simple two-chambered affair consisting of one ventricle and one atrium.
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- None.
- Fluid pressure and musculature account for the general shape of a Tribble.
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Reproductive System and Reproduction
- Perhaps the best-known function about Tribbles is their prodigious capacity to reproduce. The uterus occupying a major part of the body in which embryos are brought to term.
- There has been no recorded instance of a male Tribble.
- Tribbles are thus are Agameogenetic (no male gamete required).
- In order for Tribbles to continue their line without becoming inbred, a form of the Meseleson effect is employed.
- In Meseleson asexual reproduction the alleles in various cells began to evolve independently and over time produced differing genomes within the same animal.
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- The endocrine system of Tribbles is very complex. They use various scents and odors to determine the presence of predators, food and each other.
- The scent system seems to be why Tribbles react to Klingons the way they do as it is thought the Klingon scent elicits a fear response.
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- Endothermic
- Body temperatures tend to be slightly above most humanoid creatures and along with the soft fur give that warm cuddly feel that many humanoids attribute to them.
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(Created by Allyndra illm Warraquim, USS Galileo)
Categories: Science Database