Difference between a female platy and a female swordtail?

Ah.. interesting question, lol. Is this pertaining to a situation in your tank, or are you just asking out of curiosity? If you mixed platies and swordtails in your tank, it would be easiest to try and figure them out according to varieties.. but if you have, say, red swordtails and red platies, that could be difficult.

From my experience.. swordtails in general are slightly more slender than platies (which seem to have a broader width between stomach and dorsal), and female swordtails may have a slightly longer dorsal than platies. You may be able to see a difference in the sloping of the head. These aren't my pictures, but they demonstrate the slope fairly well

swordtail
swordtail.jpg

platy
RedWagPlatyMale.jpg
 
Looks like a male platy in that bottom pic.
 
I originally had 2 female platys and a male platy, but one died a few months ago. I bought a new female red wag platy/swordfish to replace the dead one and to reduce the harassment from my red wag male. I have a yellow female, and my male only pays attention to her. Both are definitely females, and all are adults.

Edj05 the bottom picture is a male platy
 
Not much, actually; most aquarium specimens are hybrids classified on the basis of whether the males of the population have swords or not. In the wild, the fact that a female platy grows to around 2-3" and a female swordtail to around 6" is a giveaway.
 
I'm glad this question was raised. I've often asked myself the same thing when browsing LFSz
 
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