SortStack #1169 — 2029-08-21

By weight · Order from lightest to heaviest.

1. An unfed female mosquito 2.5 mg

   After a full blood meal a mosquito can double or even triple her weight — and still fly away with the loot.

2. A single kernel of corn 300 mg

   Each kernel is botanically a complete fruit, and a typical ear carries an even number of rows — most often sixteen.

3. An Etruscan shrew, the world's smallest mammal by mass 1.8 g

   Its heart beats up to 1,500 times a minute, and it must eat about twice its body weight in insects every single day.

4. An upright piano 220 kg

   Inside is a cast-iron plate holding strings at a combined tension of roughly 18 tonnes of pull.

5. An adult hippopotamus 1.5 t

   Hippos cannot actually swim — they sink and gallop along the riverbed, surfacing to breathe every few minutes.

6. A Space Shuttle orbiter, empty on the runway 78 t

   Returning from orbit, the shuttle was a glider with no engines for a second try — every landing had to work the first time.

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