ID help

I do undergraduate research on a breeding population of Ambystoma maculatum at Denison University (in central Ohio). Our pond dried up on May 25 this year, and it was assumed that no salamanders survived. We did find one metamorph dead shortly after, however. Also, today while I was sampling the upland habitat I found a metamorph which I could not ID in the field, though I did have some suspicions. The only species that it could be are Ambystoma texanum, the leadback phase of Plethodon cinereus, or possibly Plethodon richmondi. Unfortunately it was very tiny and I didn't have a hand lens in the field, nor did I have a suitable container to transport it in, so I was unable to determine whether or not it had nasolabial grooves (which would make identification much easier). Since they are not pond breeders, we really don't care about the two Plethodon species, but it would be very interesting if it was an Ambystoma texanum metamorph which survived the drying, especially since our population of this species is very small (though they've definitely gone into the pond to breed). I used photographs that I took to count the costal grooves, and also going by general body shape my research adviser and I both suspect that it is indeed Ambystoma texanum, but we're not 100% sure. So I'll post the pictures that I took (if I could figure out how that works, since this is my first post) and if anyone has experience in discriminating between metamorphs of these species, let me know what you think.

So it turns out I can't get the images to work in here, so I'll just post links to my facebook album:

http://denison.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=30672361&id=28500665
http://denison.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=30672359&id=28500665
http://denison.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=30672360&id=28500665

When I tried to view the links, facebook tells me I need to log in. What problem do you have posting them here? If you can't work that out, I would suggest either using photobucket, or email me the photos and I'll post them up for you. (jennewt at caudata.org)

I think the problem was that my file sizes were too big. I tried cropping them but that still didn't help. I did upload them to photobucket, however, so I'll post those links and hopefully everyone will now be able to view the pictures.

http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y2/alien270/?action=view&current=DSCN2920.jpg
http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y2/alien270/?action=view&current=DSCN2924.jpg
http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y2/alien270/?action=view&current=DSCN2926.jpg

So it turns out that by dumb luck I found another individual while rummaging around the leaf litter looking for small mammal burrows. Not wanting to waste this second chance, I transported it back to the lab in my camera case and using a hand lens confirmed the presence of nasolabial grooves. So it's probably a juvenile lead-back Plethodon cinereus.

I think its either a Jefferson's Salamander (Ambystoma jeffersonianum) or a Jefferson's x Bluespotted Salamander hybrid. They are very similar, thats just my guess.

With nasolabial grooves, it's surely not ambystomatid. I'll buy the P. cinereus theory. It has the right head-shape for it.