The Horta is a highly intelligent, silicon-based species, that is capable of tunneling through solid rock ike humans are able to walk through air.

Discovered on the planet Janus IV, the Horta is female, and lives below the planet's Federation mining facility.

Around stardate 3196.1, the Janus VI miners were suddenly attacked repeatedly by this creature, who as it turns out, was merely trying to protect her eggs. The miners were unaware that their mining posed a serious threat to both the Horta's unborn children and to the future of the entire Horta species.