What type of fish is Dory?

Dory is a blue tang fish.

More specifically, she is portrayed as a regal blue tang, a species also known as the palette surgeonfish. In Finding Nemo, her bright blue body and yellow tail make her visually distinctive, while her short-term memory loss drives much of the story.

A common mix-up is calling Dory a clownfish because she travels with Marlin, but Marlin and Nemo are clownfish. Dory belongs to a different fish family and is not the same species as the yellow tang seen in the dentist's aquarium.

The character's popularity had real-world consequences: demand for blue tangs rose after Finding Nemo, prompting concern because the species was historically collected from the wild for aquariums. Dory also returns as a central character in the 2016 sequel Finding Dory.