Bull Ants — I

Schopenhauer, never notable for excessive cheerfulness, was much pained by contemplation of the Australian bull-dog ant. For if it is cut in two it fights with itself, a battle begins between the head and the tail. The head seizes the tail with its teeth, and the tail defends itself ferociously by stinging the head. Such battles have been known to last for half an hour, until the combatants died or were dragged away by other ants, themselves perhaps appalled by the spectacle.
John Stewart Collis, The Worm Forgives the Plough
Let's not anthropomorphise:
bull ants know nothing of hate or fear.
But the unstoppable-except-by-death desire
to fight is there—at whatever price.
An organism divides into two enemies
no longer able to remember each other.
One stings, one bites. Victory awaits neither:
heads can't win, tails must lose.