Is all the lobster at Lobsterfest really lobster?

Red Lobster’s popular seafood promotion, “Lobsterfest,” continues at the four area Red Lobster restaurants through April 25. And some of the featured dishes raise this question: What in the hell is langostino, anyway?

If you ask a Maine fisherman, you’ll get one answer (it isn’t really lobster), and if you ask the folks at the Orlando-based Red Lobster chain, they’ll tell you that the crustacean known as langostino — aka squat lobster, red crab, lobster krill, red whalefeed — is a kind of lobster. You know, in the same way that the ground meat inside the beef tacos at Taco Bell is, allegedly, kind of beefy. Or the “kani-kama” served at some sushi restaurants is kind of like, you know, crab.