Confusion of Names
This confusion of names arose originally from the fact that the names bone-fish and bony-fish were applied indiscriminately by native fishermen to both ladyfish and ten-pounder; indeed, the names ladyfish, ten-pounder, and their synonyms bonefish and bony-fish date back to our earliest history. In Natal it is called "springer."
U. S. Bureau of Fisheries.
Redfish; Channel Bass. (Sciænops ocellatus.)
Of Ancient Age and Lineage
Their scientific names were both bestowed by Linnæus more than two hundred years ago. Catesby, in 1737, called the ladyfish of the Bahamas "bonefish," while Captain William Dampier, one of the early explorers, called the bony-fish of the Bahamas "ten-pounder." While the two fishes are both allied to the herring tribe, they belong to different families, though the young of both species undergo a metamorphosis, or pass through a larval stage, in which they appear as ribbon-shaped, transparent bodies, totally unlike their parents.
Nomenclature
As just stated, they belong to entirely different families. The ladyfish (Albula vulpes), or bonefish, as it may be called, is the only fish in its family (Albulidæ), while the ten-pounder (Elops saurus), or bony-fish, belongs to the tarpon family (Elopidæ), and like the tarpon has a bony plate between the branches of the lower jaw (hence bony-fish), which bone does not exist in the ladyfish. The proper identification of the two fishes is really easier than to distinguish between the two species of black bass, or to differentiate a pike from a pickerel.
Differentiation