Don't thake that too seriously. It sounds as though you have been speaking to someone who has read Schopenhauer or read of him, more likely. I don't know where Schopenhauer got his natural history from, but, though varied, it was poor stuff, and poorly he used it, distractingly and assertively rather than illustratively.

So, firstly, ignore the source; it was essentially puffing up of excessively vague metaphysical preconceptions.

Now, back to Myrmecia, the various species of bulldog ants. Not having been bitten by any yet, but having teased a few, I rather like them. They are intriguing creatures, and those I have seen minded their own business, but like hornets and paper wasps, they behave in a way suggestive of: "Wanna mix it, mate?"

Like many ants, if they are so chopped in two that their front half remains functional, it does nothing to improve their tempers, and they will charge around looking for culprits and biting whatever they find. They are not called bulldog ants for nothing, and they are likely to hang onto anything that seems inimical till they die.

Meanwhile, the abdomen goes into stinging mode when cut off, which is not unusual in stinging insects. It cannot choose a particular target, but just lies there and stings as well as it can, literally aimlessly. If the front half encounters a rear end smelling of stinging pheromones, it might as well grab it as anything else, and it it is in the way of the sting (which is fairly unlikely) it might get stung. Then both ends might well carry on till they die.

A sordid and pointless passtime which Schopenhauer, on the basis of hearsay, used for a sordid and pointless analogy, if you ask me.

But then, he never did ask me.