 Due to their large mandibles , Myrmecia ants have been used as surgical sutures to close wounds . The ant is featured on a postage stamp and on an uncirculated coin which are part of the Things That Sting issue by Australia Post , and M. gulosa is the emblem for the Australian Entomological Society . Myrmecia famously appears in the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer 's major work , The World as Will and Representation , as a paradigmatic example of strife and constant destruction endemic to the " will to live " . 
