Bowdoin IT Employee Finds Beauty in the College’s Smallest Residents

One of DeLola's favorite spots to look for bugs is on the main Quad. Though the austere expanse of lawn on the oldest part of Bowdoin's campus doesn't look like promising habitat, DeLola says he regularly finds incredible specimens.

His Instagram account, Friends2Bugs, features some of his discoveries. Fuzzy aphids that look like willowy cotton tufts. Black-and-white zebra spiders. Or, as he recently posted, “A battle-scarred crab spider.” It's missing three legs “but still doing its thing.”

In a post showcasing a regal Myopa fly—which wears a feather on its forehead making it resemble a Dr. Seuss character—DeLola writes: “A parasitoid fly that is known as a bee grabber, it disguises itself and ambushes honey bees midair, depositing a single egg inside them.”

DeLola, who works for Bowdoin's IT department as a senior classroom technology engineer, has been fascinated by insects since he was a kid growing up on Cape Cod. By the time he was seven, he was helping his parents's landscaping business, digging holes and mulching gardens. His mom and dad also shared their love of nature with him, bringing him on fishing and camping trips.

Though he's been studying insects and fungi (his other love) most of his life—along the way amassing a huge body of knowledge—he just picked up his latest hobby last fall: macro photography.

“My inspiration for photography is that I think these subjects look amazing, and I want you to see them in the way they make me feel,” he said. The close-up images also help him learn more about the insects. “It's a tool to augment my understanding and expression of my love for insects and fungi,” he said. 

His equipment consists of a 20.4 megapixel OM System camera with a rear-illuminated sensor, a 90 mm macro lens, and an Olympus Flash Speedlight. He also uses an AK diffuser that sheds a soft focused light on his subjects. 

Behind his pursuit of bugs and his relentless quest to capture photographs of them, DeLola says he wants to share a message about protecting them. 

“I would consider myself an environmentalist and a naturalist,” he said. “Above all else, conserving the creatures on this planet is super important to me, and that goes for trees, the grasses, the native plants. Every single thing is more important than a lot of people think.”

He added, “One of the best ways to bring awareness to how fragile and crucial these things are is showing people how cool and interesting they are, how beautiful they are.”