Mysterious "Lovers"

“I just love them because they are beautiful yet mysterious. Most of them are active only at night.” Ray So’s eyes sparkle whenever he talks about his passion – amphibians and reptiles.

Although he has been interested in animals in general since childhood, Ray’s love affair with amphibians and reptiles began while studying at HKU. “My Ecology & Biodiversity major introduced me to the colourful world of nature and wildlife. In particular, my supervisor Dr Nancy Karraker, Assistant Professor of Environmental Science, a passionate frog researcher, taught me a lot about the ecology of amphibians and reptiles, and how to study and conserve them.”

As most of his favourite creatures are active at night, Ray finds it fascinating whenever he walks into the darkness of night to look for them. “Once I was assisting a postgraduate student who was doing radio-tracking of snakes in the field. We knew there was at least one snake in the field, but we could only locate a radio-transmitter with snake droppings beside it. When we were thinking what we should do next, we realised that the snake was eaten by another snake with the transmitter passing through its gut unharmed!”

For eight years, Ray has been out in the field exploring all across Hong Kong to capture and record different creatures by camera. So far, around 100 species have been collected and details on most of them were published in a book《香港兩棲爬行類眾生相》in 2015. “I hope the book manages to portray Hong Kong as not only a financial hub, but also as a good habitat for various interesting amphibians and reptiles. I will keep looking for more species of amphibians and reptiles in the field, even outside Hong Kong, and will organise excursions to the wild so people can get to appreciated not just fluffy birds and elegant butterflies, but also frogs with their moist skins and turtles with their hard shells.