Sure, he was a funny-looking duck. But he was their funny-looking duck.

Students at Ohio State University took to social media a year ago today to remember Afroduck, a popular resident of Mirror Lake who was well-known because of the tuft of white feathers on the top of his head. Afroduck was found dead around noon in the partially frozen lake.

Waves of students visited the lake to pay their respects. Some left flowers or even a rubber duck as memorials.

Maureen Hirzel, a sophomore, said she came to the lake after hearing about the duck's death in chemistry class.

“There will never be another Afroduck that can truly take his place,” she said. “He was a national treasure.”

Chelsea Hothem, a third-year student studying evolution and ecology, retrieved the animal's body from Mirror Lake this afternoon after hearing of its death on social media.

After posting a photo of the corpse on Facebook, she took it to work.

"We stuck him in our freezer," said Hothem, 20, who works at the university's Museum of Biological Diversity.

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She said that the pompadoured Afroduck is of the domestic crested variety — "not some mutation," as some have speculated — whose life span can reach about five years.

Hothem hopes to launch a GoFundMe campaign to memorialize the animal and pay for "a pretty mount and maybe a fancy cabinet."