The Panther Cave Pictograph site, designated as 41VV83, is a large rock shelter that was inhabited by prehistoric indigenous people who created pictograph on the shelter interior rock surface. The site is named for the largest figure at this location, a leaping cat, although there are about four more cats pictograph that are still discernible in the many pictograph paintings which cover the rear of the main shelter.

Also, typical of the area pictograph, there are several human figures painted, ones painted wearing head-dresses that resemble feline ears. This type of headdress is believed to be a territorial symbol.

The indigenous people who first camped within the rock shelters found along this part of the Rio Grande River, Pecos River and Seminole Canyon were members of the Mescalero-Chiricahua culture.

About the year 1300 CE, bands of the Athabascan language speaking Apaches moved in the Lower Basin and Range region of New Mexico and made the Tularosa Basin their home. Their homeland encompassed the Tularosa Basin and all the land surrounding their four sacred mountains: Sierra Blanca, Three Sisters Mountains, Oscura Mountain Peak and the Guadalupe Mountains.

The Mescalero-Chiricahua Apaches had separated into four bands which were the Bedonkohe, Nednhi, Tchihende, and Tsokanende, which in time spread into separated direction.

The Bedonkohe Appache settled in West New Mexico between the San Francisco River and eastward to Turkey Creek on the Gila River in the area of the Mogollon Mountains. This band latter became know as the Mogollon Apaches. Too, they were also known, together with other Apaches living alone the Gila River as the Gileños (Gila Appaches) and the Northeast Chiricahua.

Geronimo, a prominent leader and medicine man belonged to this band.

The Nednhi, also known as the Ndendahe or Nde'ndai and the Southern Chiricahua, lived in the Sierra Madre Occidental and deserts of NW Chihuahua, Northern Sonora, West Texas and as far west as southeast Arizona.

The Tchihende band, also known as the Chihenne, Chihende lived in southern New Mexico in the Datil, Magdelena, Socorro Mountains, in the Plains of San Agustin and eastward to the Rio Grande River.

The Tsokanende, also know as Chokonen or Central Chiricahua lived along the upper reaches of the Gila River in the area of modern day Safford, Arizona

The Panther Cave pictograph are most likely the artwork of the indigenous people who were of the Nednhi band of the Chiricahua Apaches who when they first arrived in the rock shelters found them to be a good place to shelter out of the elements, especially during inclement winter months.

The Panther Cave is located along the left (east) bank of the Seminole Caynon less than .2 miles from its confluence with the Rio Grande River and 8.5 miles downstream of the confluence of the Rio Grande with the Pecos River. There is a small wooden pier at this location available for docking to during a visit to the Panther Cave.