"I just love scanning for lifeforms. Lifeforms... you tiny little lifeforms... you precious little lifeforms... where are you?"

- Data (Star Trek Generations)

"Our mission as Starfleet officers is to seek out new lifeforms so we can learn about one another."

- Miles O'Brien (DS9: "Captive Pursuit")

A lifeform was simply any living entity or organism. The study of lifeforms was known as biology, and, when dealing with alien lifeforms, could be further sub-categorized into xenobiology and xenology.

Starship sensors and tricorders were primary instruments used in detecting or locating lifeforms, as they could identify or localize blood type, heart rate or metabolic setup.

A lifeform was not necessarily organic — which was to say carbon-based. Nevertheless, Federation scans for lifeforms often looked only for organic life. In at least one known case, this limited view of what constituted a lifeform had disastrous consequences for a Federation terraforming project. (TNG: "Home Soil")

Starfleet lifeform classes and types Edit

• Classification R-3 lifeforms (Sheliak)
• Class-5 lifeforms (Vhnori)

• Order 480-G anthropoids (Taurus II natives)

Kingdoms Edit

• Monera
• Protista
• Fungi
• Plantae
• Animalia

Other types of life Edit

• Artificial
• Biomimetic lifeform
• Cybernetic
• Silicon-based
• Solanogen-based
• Spaceborne
• Viral
• Xenon-based
• Sporocystian

See also Edit

• Anatomy
• Non-sentient lifeforms
• Species and cultures