Alien critter as described during one of my gaming sessions - insect-like, mouse sized, sharing a lot of mammalian characteristics (warm blooded, 4 legs). The 'eyes' really aren't compound, but rather IR spectrum sensory made out of incredibly smooth armored carapace.

It gets dark and very cold on their home planet at night. Gravity's low, so both prey and predators tend to move very fast. But the air is thinner than earth standard (though still breathable without a compressor), and therefore sound doesn't travel quite as well, hence a common evolutionary solution is heat-sensory organs.

Skitterbugs live in colonies, feeding on smaller plants and animals that grow in the 'thickets', the external 'hair' of another underground plant/animal lifeform. Skitterbugs lay 3-5 eggs every twenty or so local days - both parents protect and care for their young until they mature in roughly 15 local days.

Larger creatures will hunt Skitterbugs close to dusk or dawn, when they're most active, and likely to leave the protection of the thickets. Sand Bastards (a legged snake analog) however, will form temporary packs just after sunset and disturb the thickets, sending swarms of Skitterbugs migrating through, and sometimes out of, the thickets. Sand Bastards show rudimentary problem solving, building berms and channels in the sand to 'guide' a few of the panicking creatures into the maw of a waiting pack mate.

Though they appear to have wing carapaces, Skitterbugs are flightless, though good hoppers. The carapace organs are an evolutionary stopgap for dealing with the extreme cold of the dead of night if they're caught outside of their colony - When necessary a Skitterbug can pump an insulating 'foam' into the organs, sacrificing some of its blood to create a temporary dome which, after an hour or so, hardens into an armor as well.

The heat of the sun on their carapace will slowly reliquify the foam within, and though stretched out for a few days, the carapace organs will be replaced by their normal, smaller counterparts during a self induced molting 3 days afterwards.

Their lifespan is presently unknown, but many regenerative qualities of the Skitterbug seem to indicate a -very- long lifespan for such a small, quickly reproducing animal. Population control seems primarily food chain driven.