VULTURE CAPITALISM

Buckingham Palace has seen some pretty strange sights in its time — Queen’s Brian May perched on its roof in 2012 while cranking out a hair-metal version of the national anthem springs to mind — but surely none can top the incident in the early years of the 20th century when a carriage drawn by three zebras (and one nonplussed-looking pony) pulled up in front of the gates.

The reins were wielded by Lionel Walter Rothschild, the 2nd Baron Rothschild, a scion of the banking family whose interests lay in fauna rather than finance; he had driven the zebras from his townhouse at 148 Piccadilly to disprove the widely held notion that the animals were untameable. Many eminent Victorians kept exotic pets — Dante Gabriel Rossetti had a wombat named Top, who liked to nestle in his lap while he painted, and the naturalist Richard Bell kept emus, tortoises and monkeys — but Walter was in), a subspecies with five ossicones rather than two, is named in his honour, along with a further 153 insects, 58 birds, 17 mammals, three fish, three spiders, two reptiles and one millipede and worm apiece.