BRADENTON, Fla. (AP) — Snooty the manatee was born when Harry S. Truman was president, Columbia records had just released its 33 1/3 LP format, and people were still talking about how the NBC television network had broadcast Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in its entirety.

Life in America, of course, has changed.

But Snooty is still around, entertaining visitors, munching on lettuce and swimming silently in his tank at the South Florida Museum in Bradenton.

Sunday is his 65th birthday, and to mark the occasion the museum will host a free party Saturday.

He’s the oldest manatee in captivity and possibly one of the oldest ever, experts say.

“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,” said Brynne Anne Besio, executive director of the South Florida Museum. “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.”

Snooty, who is in good health, eats about 80 pounds of lettuce and vegetables every day to sustain his 1,000-pound body. He shares a tank with two smaller manatees that are being rehabilitated for cold stress. And lately, he appears thrilled to greet his visitors from the media.

Loves attention

“He loves cameras,” said Marilyn Margold, the museum’s aquarium director. Indeed, on a recent day, Snooty glided from his deep tank to a shallow medical tank and hoisted his torso above the water so he could sling a flipper onto the edge of the pool. When he spotted a video camera, he slowly inched forward toward its lens.

Snooty has been invaluable over the decades for education and conservation purposes, said Robert Bonde, a research biologist and manatee expert for the United States Geological Survey in Gainesville.

“Every year we celebrate a birthday for Snooty, it sets a new records as far as the aging potential for manatees,” he said.

Bonde said that among the wild manatee carcasses found in Florida, research showed the oldest was 53 — yet the average manatee only lives to be about 13 due to man-made threats and environmental stressors, such as cold weather.