I thought they were just lice? As a kid, I didn't know what the heck they were ... just that girls had them for some reason. I suppose you could get creative about it, and imagine them taking a body over and hollowing it out so that there was a whole city of cooties living inside, manipulating the outer appearance of the victim to appear normal ... and infect others. Except that would be rather like career politicians, wouldn't it?

Here, this is how they look like http://www.kinder-tierlexikon.de/k/kopflaus1.jpg somewhat transparent until they are sucked full of blood

I suppose it depends on what type of cootie you're talking about. There's the figurative or the actual. There's three kinds of lice that live on humans (hair, body and pubic) but saying someone has cooties could probably extend to a number of other human parasites like bedbugs, chiggers or scabies. On the other hand, using cooties in a derogatory way could just mean someone's diseased. But saying that term if you're over the age of ten is probably not a good idea if you want people to think you're an intelligent adult.

Other than that, there's always looking the term up in a dictionary!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooties

Who knew?

Cootie catcher.

Reminds me of a joke:

What's the best way to get rid of pubic lice?

Scare them over to one side with a blowtorch then STAB 'EM WITH AN ICE PICK!!!

Cooties are actually alien nanotech, the purpose of which is to kickstart puberty.

It's a lousy wash.

I was taught in a high school medical/sex ed class that it was herpes, specifically HSV, and kids just called them cooties. Though as a kid, I'd imagine cooties being like the fungus monsters from the Lamisil commercials, the little yellow guys that lived under toenails.

Cooties is a juvenile disease in homo-sapiens, transmitted by physical contact, which renders the infected unable to tolerate contact with, and often the presence of, individuals of the opposite sex. Virulence can range from mild to extreme and seems to generally be more pronounced in males.
It has been noted that young children seem to have both a genetic awareness of the disease, and an unusual ability to identify other with the disease, frequently observed alerting their peers as to which individuals in their immediate vicinity are carriers.
While studies are as yet inconclusive there is anecdotal evidence that some individuals with the disease feel a strong urge to spread it to others of the opposite sex.
There is as yet no known cure for the disease but for the greater majority of the infected, immunity seems to develop as they approach puberty. However it should be noted that in rare instances the disease can carry on into adulthood resulting in stunted social growth. Socialization is believed to speed the onset of the immunity.
The CDC classifies "the cooties" as a non-harmful pandemic; it has been observed globally, but as yet there are no known instances of fatality.

No known instance of fatality? Have you seen the poor guys with little rings on their left hands? Their circulation has been cut off, they game no more, they ignore their friends in favor of.. gasp.. TEA PARTIES. If that isn't death, nothing is.

That's Marriage, it's the opposite of the cooties, it's not always lethal, in fact some people live the majority of their lives with it, but treatment can be very, very expensive.

Except for those males who thrive on massive doses of girl cooties. I have to admit, though I dreaded them as much as any healthy young lad, I discovered that I Really Liked them once I got some serious dosage. Now, as an old Widower, the lack of new infussions have left me a wane shadow of my former self.

Back when I was a child, 'Cooties' could only be gotten by physical contact with a female around your age and not related to you by at least two points. It usually indicated some poor slob who had become interested in the female species, no matter his age; "That poor guy, he's got a bad case of the cooties" was the usual comment.

I seem to recall a cootie bug toy in stores as a child, but that was not what you were looking for.

If you are looking at this as some plot point in a story, then cooties could be some kind of infection or infestation transmissable by touch. Could be some kind of magic hex, bacterial or nanotech infection, or something else.

I suspect the origin of the term is from a time prior to widespread immunization when childhood disease were much more common, and dangerous. Parents would warn their child not to touch or get close to another child who was believed to be infected with one. Mumps, Measles, whooping cough, Chicken pox, Smallpox, Polio, tuberculosis and many more.

My grandparents lived in fear that their children might catch one of those diseases, and suffer death or disability from it. Immunizations were slowly being developed, but were viewed with suspicion by many of the doctors of the era. Nor were they 100% effective, and depend on whats called the herd effect to block epidemics when they do show up. My parents also worried, but immunizations were better and everyone had to get one to be admitted to a public school. So the herd effect was working.

Nowadays the antivaxxers are blocking immunizations of their kids. Unfortunately it will be their kids who are vulnerable to the diseases, and the horrible effects of them. Evolution in action, but evolution doesn't give a damn about individuals.

I'll tell you what a grown up version of cooties is.

I will tell you.



STDs.

And more deadlier by a metric ton...

Cooties is a board game designed in 1927 by William Schaper and J. H. W.

i'm a cootie

At 50mm, you'd be bigger than I would have envisioned as a cootie. Given the scale of your butt-squrigles, I would have thought them more cootie-esque. Though a small hand-full sized cootie would be handy for a little girl to actually throw at a boy, so she could give him cooties without risking getting his. I'd imagine boy cooties to be a bit greasy and smell bad in groups.

you see i'm actually made up of millions of microscopic buttsquirrels, which are the true cooties

It explains so much!

These amateurs, allow a true bacteriologist to explain the cootie: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/22530242/

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Exactly the kind of thing I was looking for! Almost like those other guys didn't actually read my entry.

Not exactly a topic one can discuss enthusiastically...

No problem, always glad to help XD

dissinfectant, frequent washing, human fleas basically, hard to spot before they bite, easy(er) to spot when all bloated up with your blood after they bit.
also called bed bugs or saber tooth crotch crickets. smaller then cat fleas. still visible to the naked eye if you've got good eyes for seeing really tiny things.
can be captured with scotchtape.

now as a character or sona, well there was a porn thing called autobiography of a flea,
although i don't know if there were any actual fleas in it.

actual life cycle is not very inspiring, but that never stopped creative fantasy,
there was after all, 'the incredible tick', or whatever it was called.

also the fantasy 'cooties' of childhood, had their own unique and unrelated appearance.
they were supposed to be literally invisible, but had a very solid, if minute, physical form,
sort of like micro scorpions.

someone somewhere somewhen, probable has done some sort of commic of them,
i mean i'd be surprised if no one has. but i don't recall ever seeing such a comic book.

Next up: Nookie -- Can Too Much Really Make You Go Blind?

That's the way the Nookie crumbles.

Tiny grey, white beaked water birds with weird feet piloting home-built two seat amphibious planes telling you to get off their lawn?

Long time since I heard about that version.

Tribble-like pink puffballs that mind-control children into kissing each-other because they spread through kisses? Mom-kisses didn't count though! They didn't affect adults, nor could adults see them and thus didn't believe in them!
That's what comes up if I think back on what I thought they were as a child, I think. XD