If anyone is in the mood to play, help me ID this thing. I found it in a kelp bed along the shores of Santa Barbara.
Looks like a prawn to me.
No authority, and by no means sure. But lobster go through something like 18 stages as they grow. This could be one of the early stages. (ours in CA don’t have cloppers)
And they taste better than Eastern ones.
I’m trying to find images of lobsters’ early stages.
These lobster larvae don’t look like the photo in the OP.
The OP pic does look a bit like a lobster, and maybe it’s a different stage; but I’m thinking it’s something else.
It looks like a kelp isopod. Isopods are crustaceans, yet include our friend the woodlouse, or roly-poly bug.
The mug shots:
http://emeralddiving.com/id_other_inverts.html
http://www.seaotter.com/marine/research/idotea/wosnesenskii/html/wosnesenskii.jpg.html
The info:
tr0psn4j, I ought to mention that I did my PhD in Oceanography at UC Santa Barbara, although now I live in Canada. Now I’m getting all nostalgic. How’s the surf?
Oh so you probably know the area pretty well. That was found near the bird sanctuary which is in front of Sand Piper Golf Course. I believe that’s Haskall’s beach but I’m not sure about it.
As far as the surf goes, I can’t tell you much other than Goleta almost always sucks. I spend my beach time fishing rather than surfing. I was out on my friend’s boat that day.
Goleta is a lot of fun though. Here are a few pics of me fishing in Santa Barbara for your nostalgia’s sake.
Pic 1 (I’m wading out with a dolphin in the background)
Pic 2 (Neck deep in water)
We had some sort of Seal sitting on kelp looking at as all funny that day too. That was May of '08, I need to make another trip up that way soon.
Oh and I might as well mention I’ve seen a bunch of “ticks” (atleast that’s what I call 'em) on lingcods in the area but they’re grey and actually do look like an isopod.
I guess the crustacean is IDed enough to buy beer. 
I think they prefer liquor. The last restaurant I was in had a cocktail just for them right on the menu!