A good case to look at would be Michiel Hazewinkel's 'star example' of a rich structure **Symm**, the ring of symmetric functions in a countably infinite number of indeterminates. > **Symm**, the Hopf algebra of the symmetric functions is a truly amazing > and rich object. It turns up > everywhere and carries more extra > structure than one would believe > possible. For instance it turns up as > the homology of the classifying space > **BU** and also as the cohomology of that space, illustrating its > self-duality. It turns up as the > direct sum of the representation > spaces of the symmetric group and as > the ring of rational representations > of the infinite general linear group. > This time it is Schur duality that is > involved. It is the free > $\lambda$-ring on one generator. It > has a nondegenerate inner product > which makes it self-dual and the > associated orthonormal basis of the > Schur symmetric functions is such that > coproduct and product are positive > with respect to these basis > functions...**Symm** is also the > representing ring of the functor of > the big Witt vectors and the covariant > bialgebra of the formal group of the > big Witt vectors (another > manifestation of its auto-duality)... > > As the free $\lambda$-ring on one > generator it of course carries a > $\lambda$-ring structure. In addition > it carries ring endomorphisms which > define a functorial $\lambda$-ring > structure on the rings $W(A) = > CRing(Symm, A)$ for all unital commutative rings $A$. A sort of > higher $\lambda$-ring structure. Being > self dual there are also > co-$\lambda$-ring structures and > higher co-$\lambda$-ring structures > (whatever those may be). > > Of course, **Symm** carries still more > structure: it has a second > multiplication and a second > comultiplication (dual to each other) > that make it a coring object in the > category of algebras and, dually, > (almost) a ring object in the category > of coalgebras. > > The functor represented by **Symm**, > i.e. the big Witt vector functor, has > a comonad structure and the associated > coalgebras are precisely the > $\lambda$-rings. > > All this by no means exhausts the > manifestations of and structures > carried by **Symm**. It seems unlikely > that there is any object in > mathematics richer and/or more > beautiful than this one, and many more > uniqueness theorems are needed. ([Witt > vectors. Part 1][1]: 7) [1]: http://arxiv.org/abs/0804.3888