Warty Doris
APOCALYPSE SOON? - An explanation.
When my allocated ‘fish’, Warty Doris, came out of the hat, I was instantly reminded of those Grand National sweepstakes that took place every April at the school where I worked. Fate would conspire to invariably pair me with a 200/1 or worse outsider which, on the day usually never got beyond the second fence, let alone Beecher’s Brook. Just like ‘ Warty Doris’, these loser horses always seemed to have bizarre names, possibly chosen on an owner's whim or an unlikely and cruel combination of the titles of the respective sires and dames.
Situated in Hull's Maritime Quarter, the name of this element of the Hull Fish Trail doesn't find itself out of place with some of the other residents, both past and present - ‘ Dirty Nellie's’ or ‘ Thieving Harry's’ for example.
Having never heard of ‘Warty Doris’, some Googling was required on my part - revealing that the creature is not a fish at all, but a sea slug with no obvious economic or nutritional value, to humans at least. A native of the waters around the Mediterranean and South Africa, it has recently been establishing itself on the UK’s southern coast - presumably due to the effects of our steadily warming climate and as a consequence, warmer seas. All this leaves me to wonder about the creatures being selected for inclusion on the Fish Trail. Was this a similar racehorse ‘owner's whim’ on the part of the commissioners or the artist involved?
Whatever its name, learning that it is a member of the marine gastropod mollusc family somehow endeared the fairly repulsive-looking creature to me via an immediate and albeit tenuous kinship bond. I was born on the outskirts of Penclawdd on the North Gower coast. For decades and probably centuries, the village has been synonymous throughout Wales with sustainable seafood production. Until comparably recently, cockles (marine bivalve molluscs) were manually gathered, primarily by women* at low tide on the Burry Inlet, where tides are claimed to rise and fall as fast as a person can run.
Whatever its name and appearance, the arrival of Doris Verrucosa around Southampton appears to have been greeted with interested enthusiasm by several environmental organizations. This is something that I do find a little confusing, as the creature is surely a harbinger of future turmoil around our shores, which will have immeasurable impact on both we humans and our local wildlife. Will the sand eel and other more obvious food sources be forced further North by warmer sea temperatures and how will this affect us, our fishing industry, and the seabird population?
Interestingly, ‘Sea Slug’ was also the ill-suited name of an early surface to air missile system fitted onto British Devonshire Class warships in the nineteen sixties. Somehow, one doesn't really imagine a slug moving at incredible speed through the skies, relentlessly seeking to pursue and ultimately unleash mayhem on its target. Little wonder that the Royal Navy saw fit to later replace it with ‘ Sea Dart’.
The thought of slugs inevitably bring to mind gardening and how the liberal use of slug pellets within the nation’s gardens over the years has seemingly done little to eradicate the intended victims, but the toxic ingredients contained within the pellets (e.g. metaldehyde and methiocarb) have played havoc with their natural predators - hedgehogs and song thrushes to name but two.
So where do I go with this initial research and my resulting observations? A three-dimensional 1/16 scale mock up of ‘Warty Doris’ - the eco shellfish/mollusc bar - the latest and coolest epicurean addition to uber-trendy Humber Street? Quite appropriate as a friend thought that ‘Doris’ resembled a ‘Dinosaur Chip’- a deep fried dill pickle in bread crumbs - an American bar snack.
Or
A surrealistic-styled painting of a Warty Doris travelling at supersonic speed through the skies with flames spurting from the eight gills arranged around its anus?
Or, the increasingly likely option: Warty Doris as the menacing ‘Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse’. Conquest, War, Famine, Death and new for 2025 Climate Upheaval! Maybe riding a Ferrari-inspired, prancing stallion (quite possibly, the epitome of Man's vanity, which to my mind, has played no small part in getting us into this mess) or maybe a lowly seahorse? Whatever it is, forget that ‘red horse, pale horse’ malarkey, this one's going to be a nice shade of brown, sewage brown.
*For more about the Penclawdd cockle women: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-64976890.amp
Artist: Roger Roach
Fish Profile:
Warty Doris - Doris verrucosa
Conservation status
The Warty Doris is a yellow-brown sea slug, which lives under stones, and gets its name from the lumpy shapes all over its body. It is yellow-brown in colour and typically grows to 30mm in length. Although it has been recorded as long as 70mm.
It was formally identified in the UK for the first time in November 2023 off the Hampshire coast.
It is often referred to for its pharmaceutical interest.
There is little information on its conservation status save for the fact it is rare to find.