She's the oldest gorilla in captivity - probably in the world. She's the first gorilla born in captivity. And today, when she turns 58, she'll be the MVP at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium. The zoo is celebrating Colo, its most famous resident.

She�s the oldest gorilla in captivity � probably in the world.

She�s the first gorilla born in captivity.

And today, when she turns 58, she�ll be the MVP at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium. The zoo is celebrating Colo , its most famous resident.

�She knows the whole day is about her,� said Audra Meinelt, assistant curator of the zoo�s Congo Expedition. �She�ll get a cake, and she�ll get presents to open � wrapped boxes with a few extra treats like mixed nuts and clementines.�

And for the second year in a row, Colo fans around the world will be able to share in the festivities as the event is streamed live from the zoo�s gorilla habitat. Patty Peters, a zoo spokeswoman, said that people tuned in to watch last year�s birthday celebration from every continent except Antarctica.

Each year that the world�s best-known western lowland gorilla survives is a gift, said Meinelt, who has helped care for Colo for 18 years. The median age for female gorillas is 37, and western lowland gorillas are critically endangered.

Her birth � just before Christmas in 1956 � also was a gift.

Although zookeepers across the country were trying to mate their gorillas, none had become pregnant. In Columbus, zoo director Earle Davis had ordered that the zoo�s wild-born male and female gorillas, Mac and Millie, be kept in separate cages so they wouldn�t hurt each other.

But a part-time keeper, Warren Thomas, put the pair together at night. Within weeks, Thomas was sure that Millie was pregnant, but he kept the news to himself for months before telling Davis.

A few weeks before the expected due date, Thomas found Colo on the floor of Millie�s cage, still in her amniotic sac. He grabbed the baby, broke the sac and revived her with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, according to news reports at the time.

The birth became news worldwide. Because keepers feared that Colo�s mother might hurt her, humans cared for Colo, whose name is short for Columbus. She was kept in an incubator, dressed like a human baby and placed in a hurriedly built, glassed-in nursery, where a million people visited her in her first year.

Time and Life magazines printed spreads about the newborn gorilla. Columbus Mayor M.E. �Jack� Sensenbrenner handed out cigars labeled �It�s a girl.�

Hilliard veterinarian Dr. Richard Vesper was 4 at the time and visited Colo with his late father, Dr. Robert W. Vesper, a local veterinarian who helped with the zoo animals.

�I remember the furor,� Vesper said. Because of the rare birth, �everyone was terrified to give her back to her mom. Their fears overwhelmed their scientific rationale, and they wouldn�t take the risk. They made decisions at the gut level.�

He also remembers Colo�s clothes: �They put bonnets on her and dresses.�

Colo�s birth and survival spurred a healthy captive-breeding program for western lowland gorillas in zoos. She became the oldest gorilla in captivity when Jenny, a 55-year-old western lowland gorilla at the Dallas Zoo, died in 2008. Jenny was born in the wild.

In Colo�s 58 years, she has had three children. She has been a grandmother 16 times, a great-grandmother 10 times and a great-great-grandmother three times. She survived tuberculosis when she was 6 after doctors predicted that she�d be dead in three months. She has outlived two of her children, nine of her grandchildren, two of her great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandchild.

Meinelt said Colo is remarkably healthy.

�She does not appear to have a single bit of trouble with her eyes or ears,� Meinelt said. � Mostly, she has arthritis in her hands and feet.�

For the past 10 years, she has lived by herself most of the time.

�She showed she didn�t want to live in the day-to-day dynamics of a group anymore,� Meinelt said. But she is always near other gorilla groups so she can see them, and daughter Toni sometimes spends a few days with her.

She�s on display most days in the gorilla habitat, where she often sits quietly and watches visitors through the glass.

On a recent day, she munched on kale and endive and whacked a coconut on the ground until it broke. She carefully picked out the white meat inside the coconut and popped it in her mouth as she sat on the floor in the indoor gorilla exhibit.

Although Colo was raised by humans, she doesn�t seem to see humans as her counterparts.

�She�s still very much a gorilla,� Meinelt said.

@reporterkathy