Small creatures believed to be extinct by the 24th century, the last known living specimen of which was kept by the collector Kivas Fajo among his stolen treasures.
The Lapling is a small animal that the wider galaxy had long since thought to have died out. One appears in The Next Generation episode The Most Toys.
In 2366 the Zibalian trader Kivas Fajo fakes Data's destruction in a shuttle explosion and adds the android to his private gallery of unique objects. Showing off the collection, Fajo points out a living Lapling in a display case, the only one left, alongside items such as a Roger Maris baseball card and a painting by Van Gogh.
The creature underlines what Fajo is: a man who values rarity above life and is content to keep the last of a species in a box. Data is to be one more exhibit, until his rescue by the USS Enterprise-D.