RACINE - For her 27th birthday, Julie got a bag full of washcloths and towels, a cake of bananas and grapes, and more renditions of "Happy Birthday" than anyone bothered to count.

The patas monkey's May 20 birthday made history.

Julie is now, officially, the oldest patas monkey ever.

"She's the oldest one in the history of the world," said Jay Christie, president and CEO of the Racine Zoo, Julie's lifelong home. "It's pretty safe to assume that an animal would never reach that type of advanced age out in the wild. Life in the wild's no picnic."

Julie was born in Racine, and spent most of her life living with a group of patas monkeys. She is the only one left. The rest died of old age, Christie said.

The party thrown for Julie last month was a special one, celebrating her aging achievement, but Crystal Champeau, a primate care specialist at the Racine Zoo, said she does something special whenever a primate has a birthday.

Julie's layer cake was made of dried primate biscuits, turned into a mash, layered with bananas and grapes and frosted with yogurt, Champeau said. There were streamers and a cardboard birthday cake. She got a bag full of washcloths and hand towels - some of her favorite things to play with - and plenty of attention from visiting schoolchildren.

There are no plans to move Julie elsewhere, or to give her new monkey pals to live with.

"In Julie's case, because she's the last of her kind here in Racine, we make sure we give her environmental enrichment to make her golden years more comfortable," Christie said.

All her vegetables are cooked, because she has lost some teeth, and staff makes sure she can get to the places that make her feel safe and secure.

Now that the weather is warm, Julie spends 95 percent of her time outside, where Champeau said she enjoys looking at people who come to look at her.

Long lives at zoo

Chinese muntjac: 23 years, 2 months. The small deer, native to Taiwan, is also known as a "barking deer" because of its cry. The muntjac at the Racine Zoo was born at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 28, 1981, and died here on Feb. 11, 2005.

American gray squirrel: 23 years, 6 months. The squirrel came to Racine on June 14, 1949, and died Jan. 2, 1973. The squirrel outlived the prior record-holder by more than seven years. The second- and third-longest-lived American gray squirrels were at a zoo in Dublin, Ireland.

Patas monkey: 27 years. Julie was born in Racine on May 20, 1982. She has lived here her entire life. Patas monkeys in captivity typically live into their early 20s.