Over the course of 60 years Charlie and Lois O'Brien traveled to more than 67 countries and quietly amassed the world’ | dG1fZ0JyWnFCVUZEWE0
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Short filmTranscript
00:00This is Jim Enns and the other is Jim Mattis.
00:03They're the two most beautiful I have.
00:05Oh, I didn't think that was the most beautiful.
00:07Yeah, well, you didn't look at it under a scope.
00:11My name is Charles O'Brien.
00:12I'm a retired professor of entomology
00:15and have been studying weevils for 60 years.
00:19And I am Lois O'Brien, Charlie's wife,
00:21and I've been studying planthoppers for almost that long.
00:27We estimate that we have a million and a quarter
00:29dead insects mounted and labeled.
00:33When you ask questions particularly about our love for each other,
00:36it's just beyond me to analyze it and explain it.
00:39And now we're going collecting.
00:41We're scientists. We're not behaviorists.
00:43Hit them.
00:45We've collected in more than 70 countries
00:48and all of the continents.
00:51The estimate of our collection is $10 million.
00:55We think of it in terms of scientific value.
00:59Lois is one of the top people in the field,
01:02and I'm mostly an armchair taxonomist
01:05because of the balance problem associated with Parkinson's.
01:10To look out and know all of the weevils that are out there
01:13that I would love to be able to collect.
01:16Charlie has so much knowledge.
01:18He could be sharing it with people.
01:20We want the collection to be a permanent research collection.
01:24In a way, our work is immortal.
01:27laughs
01:30Oh dear.