Egg -
Spoiler
This minute egg is stuck to a strand of hair.
Cooties are pests that bestow an odd affliction through their bites; their hosts become extremely friendly, to the point of foolishness. Prey will venture forth to snuggle with predators, and predators in turn will reciprocate, refusing to injure what would normally be a tasty meal. Some Magi see the odd Cooties as a blessing upon The World, spreading love and peace wherever they go. However, the reality is not nearly as nice as some would want to believe. Oftentimes, afflicted prey will be eaten by non-afflicted predators, and afflicted predators will starve to death, refusing to kill or eat. Untreated sufferers will rarely recover on their own. However, a simple potion-laden bath is often enough to eradicate Cooties from an unfortunate being, leaving them free to recover while the bites' effects wear off.
Cooties are pests that bestow an odd affliction through their bites; their hosts become extremely friendly, to the point of foolishness. Prey will venture forth to snuggle with predators, and predators in turn will reciprocate, refusing to injure what would normally be a tasty meal. Some Magi see the odd Cooties as a blessing upon The World, spreading love and peace wherever they go. However, the reality is not nearly as nice as some would want to believe. Oftentimes, afflicted prey will be eaten by non-afflicted predators, and afflicted predators will starve to death, refusing to kill or eat. Untreated sufferers will rarely recover on their own. However, a simple potion-laden bath is often enough to eradicate Cooties from an unfortunate being, leaving them free to recover while the bites' effects wear off.
Hatchling -
Spoiler
You grudgingly let the tiny, newly-hatched invertebrate crawl onto your arm, keeping a close eye on it so that you don't end up losing it. It clambers down a hair clumsily, the hooks at the end of its legs not quite large enough to let it cling to you securely. Young Cooties are fairly hardy, and because of their small size, nigh-impossible to remove by physical means. Luckily, when they're young, they aren't prone to spreading the affliction for which they are famous.
Adult -
Spoiler
Your diminutive "friend" has hardly grown at all, but with the help of a magnifying glass, you can see that it is indeed slightly larger, its claws now the perfect size to hook around a hair. It's still quite clumsy though, and waves its legs in the air feebly when you prod it with a thin twig. Sensing that you've had enough of feeding it for the day, it crawls to the top of a hair and lets you gently brush it into a small container. While without the looks, strength, or intelligence of creatures, Cooties have their own special power, in that a single bite from one can temporarily turn even the most ferocious of beasts into a friendly companion.
I hope these are around for more than a day.
Besides the Cootie game bugs. (I still have an original game from 1949 I hope they're cute like those things.)