Name – The Optera
Species – underground living insect
Planet – Vortis
Temperament – Timid
Appearances – The Web Planet

The Optera are caterpillar-like creatures who were once Menoptra, but were driven to burrow under the ground by the Amimus, abandoning the world of light and flight above. It is implied that they may have been driven there by the malevolent Animus. They have larger eyes than their Menoptra relatives and have no wings. However, they have numerous arms and move by a series of hops. They speak with inflection different to that of the Menoptra and their speech is a strange dialect of the language of the "upper world" with words and phrases they have coined for themselves - for example, when they refer to how they plan to dig a hole in a wall they say, "We shall make a mouth in it."

Many Optera died in the effort to defeat the Animus. when they were free, they returned to the surface, led by the Menopra Vrestin who suggested to them that their children might learn to fly again.