Mutually Assured Destruction Or Notes On A Reptilian Taboo Poem by Roy Ballard

If rattlesnakes bite you or me
it's very likely R.I.P.
This comes as a surprise... but if
he bites himself a snake's soon stiff
moreover should he bite a mate
it suffers too that certain fate.
And yet for mates the snakes do fight
but only wrestle, never bite.
They'll gladly have a go at you
but biting peers is quite taboo,
a rule that snakes should never flout
for lines that do so soon die out.
Thus evolution by selection
protects a snake at preconception.