That is M’Ress, a Catian, and the back up Comms officer among other roles.
Animation allows for aliens that aren’t just bumpy forehead humanoids.
T’Ana, the Chief Medical Officer in Lower Decks and, a minor recurring character in the first season of Prodigy (shown in my avatar) are also Caitian.
Strongly recommend seeing TAS at least once. There’s a lot of great stuff in there from the original TOS writers and cast.
A shout out to Trek Core’s great database of screencaps. This one is from their TAS BlueRay screencap library.
I read this in Data's voice.
"It appears that they are some sort of feline-humanoid hybrid creature, reminiscent of early 21st century Japanese animation."
Except not FFS. What did my Vulcan-Android ass just get done telling you?
There's a feline race in the Star Trek universe called the Caitians. Their appearance varies WIDELY depending on whether they're live-action or animated.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Caitian
