Strange Weight Questions

With all the foreign tourists we have on game drive you will always get the most out of the ordinary questions. Many of the questions are very genuine, so one has to be honest and try keep a straight face when giving the answers.

I had this lady on drive one day and she was quite interested in the weight of just about everything we encounted.

The first animal we came across was a Giraffe.
The first question thrown at me was: “How much does a giraffe’s heart weigh?”
I answered: “Good question, I don’t know the answer to that but I will try find out for you.”
She replied: “I know. The Giraffe’s heart weighs 14kg.”
She was right as I found out later that a Giraffe’s heart is about 10% of it's total body weight which is roughly 14kg, for an adult

About half an hour later we came across a Dung Beetle busy rolling a ball of dung down the road. We stopped to watch the little guy in action.
The lady then asked: “How much does the dung-ball weigh?”

With that question, I thought to myself:“Okay lets try get a bit technical about dung balls.”
I answered: “Well, the weight of the dung-ball depends on a number of different factors. Firstly it depends on which animal the dung is from. Buffalo dung has a higher density than Elephant dung and is thus heavier.
Secondly it depends on the time of the year, as the dung will be heavier in the higher rainfall season as there is more moisture in the plants that the animals eat. This all makes it rather difficult to give the exact answer on the dung-balls weight.”
She then asked me again in response: “How much does it weigh?”
So I climbed of the Land Rover, took the Dung Beetle off its ball, held the dung-ball in my hand asif trying to weight it, and then told her: “It weighs 20 grams.”
She was happy with the answer so we then continued with the game drive.

One will always get a curve-ball of a question every now and again and that’s cool as it makes the game drives more interesting.