Argonaut

Argonauts are octopuses that build shells - but unlike nautilus shells which are true body parts, argonaut shells are secreted by specialized arms and can be abandoned or replaced. Only females build shells, using two modified arms that secrete calcium carbonate. The shell serves as a brood chamber for eggs and as a buoyancy device. It's manufactured housing produced by distributed limb activity rather than grown body structure.

This manufactured shell represents distributed production of infrastructure. The arms don't grow the shell like a snail grows its shell; they build it through ongoing secretion activity. If damaged, the shell can be repaired. If lost, a new one can be started. The argonaut has externalized infrastructure production to distributed appendages that can work semi-independently on construction.

For business, argonaut demonstrates how distributed activity can produce centralized infrastructure. Wikipedia's content, open-source codebases, and crowd-funded projects all represent shell-building by distributed arms. No central body produces the structure; it emerges from ongoing contribution by semi-independent participants. The structure (shell, wiki, codebase) provides value to all participants but exists separately from any individual contributor. Like argonaut shells, these structures can be repaired, extended, or even replaced if necessary.