I took these photos in a Greenbrier Co., WV cave this past weekend and wanted to share them with you all. As it's a fairly well known cave, I'm not going to openly divulge the name for fear of having the kiddies trampled over (we noticed that some were leaving the pool already and were now in nearby pools). But since seeing baby salamanders is pretty rare to begin with, I thought that the photos might be useful to someone. The little buggers were barely as long as the width of my thumbnail (~.5") and appear to still have their gills. They still seemed more prone to swiming and floating than stopping and walking.
My first thought about their species was Eurycea Lucifuga - the cave salamander. It's pretty common. But the references I found said that the young were yellow and not spotted at all. So does anyone know which species they belong to?
John
Pool with caver for scale
Closer picture of the pool
Individual shot