Snooty, the oldest known manatee, will celebrate his 65th birthday with a party on Sunday.
The elderly manatee lives in a tank at South Florida Museum where he spends his days swimming and eating lettuce, the Associated Press reported.
Snooty lives with two other manatees. He eats about 800 pounds of lettuce a day.
"If you lived in a pool where people gave you a bath and fed you lettuce by hand and you had no other predators and the water was always a nice warm temperature, you'd be living long too," Brynne Anne Besio, executive director of the South Florida Museum, said. "He's protected, he's safe, he has a great diet, he has regular medical care, and so he's got all the odds for him in terms of living long."
The manatee is still in great health, and soaks up all of the attention he gets at the museum.
"He loves cameras," said Marilyn Margold, the museum's aquarium director.
Snooty may be one of the oldest manatees in the world, the oldest manatee carcass found on the Florida shores was "only" 53 years old.
"Every year we celebrate a birthday for Snooty, it sets a new records as far as the aging potential for manatees," Robert Bonde, a research biologist and manatee expert for the United States Geological Survey.
There have been rumors over the years that Snooty was a hoax, and the museum put a new manatee in his place when the old one died.
"That was a popular thing to do years ago: if you lose one marine mammal, you'd get another one and just give it the same name," Margold said. "In our particular case, it's not true. Snooty has two scars on his side from some abscesses that were removed over 30 years ago, and that's a real strong identification. Also he has a very predominant tail. And those two things are giveaways that it's the same Snooty."
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