The only son of famous adventurers Lord and Lady Hislop-Wode, Dan was believed lost at the age of only eighteen months when, during a ballooning expedition across the Indian interior, his wetnurse accidentally dropped him from the balloon. Extraordinarily, the infant child was snatched mid-air by a giant crested buffalo-eagle and taken to the great birds nest, doubtlessly intended as food for its young. However the nest was at that moment being raided by two members of the now extinct Snake People of Rajhastan, who rescued the young aristocrat from being eaten and raised him as their own.
When he was eight years old Dan was discovered again by a Royal Society anthropological expedition. He was repatriated to England and raised in the reptile enclsoure of London Zoo, there he was taught to read and write, to chew his food before swallowing it, and not to shed his skin. It has been claimed he retains the curious techniques of being able to dislocate his lower jaw and on occasion produce poisonous saliva, but he denies both these accusations.
Once he came of age Dan inherited his parents vast fortune and moved in to their then empty stately home in Suffolk where he became something of a recluse. Reports of drug fuelled orgies and the consuming of large mammals live continue to occasionally circulate in the popular papers but nothing has ever been proven. It is not known exactly how Too Many Monkeys tempted him out of this life of leisure but it is rumoured that they are in posession of certain incriminating photographs.