H.P. Lovecraft - Elder Thing

"Six feet end to end, three and five-tenths feet central diameter, tapering to one foot at each end. Like a barrel with five bulging ridges in place of staves. Lateral breakages, as of thinnish stalks, are at equator in middle of these ridges. In furrows between ridges are curious growths – combs or wings that fold up and spread out like fans. . . which gives almost seven-foot wing spread. Arrangement reminds one of certain monsters of primal myth, especially fabled Elder Things in [the] Necronomicon."
—H.P. Lovecraft, At the Mountains of Madness

The Great Old Ones who filtered down from the stars when the Earth was young. Beings with such great intellects and understandings of science that we will never truly understand. Creators of all life on Earth. Establishing a great city on the continent that we now know as Antarctica. 
Using their great knowledge of science, they created shapeless globular protoplasmic slaves known as the Shoggoths. The Shoggoths served as the primarly labour force for the Elder Things, creating their vast cities and aiding in many other tasks that the Elder Things saw suitable to utilise them for. Unfotunately the Shoggoths were too cunning for their own good, and began to learn for themselves.
Once warred with Great Cthulhu and his fiendish Star Spawn from the darkness of space, the Elder Things successfully banished Cthulhu beneath the waves into his sunken city of R'lyeh. But at a great cost.
The Shoggoths, now with a taste for blood, turned against their creators. The great rebellion was overwhelming for the Elder Things, and their civilisation began to crumble. 
Though the remains of their civilisation still stand in the cold wasteland of Antarctica, the great minds from space that once lived are all but gone. But it is believed that other lurking horrors from the ancient past might still reside there... waiting in the dark...