The notion that it is native to the tropical western Atlantic was perpetuated from the fact that the type specimen, described by Duchassaing & Michelotti in 1860, was collected from the US Virgin Islands.

[3] Carijoa riisei was originally thought to be native to the tropical and semi-tropical western Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico.

The first report in Ecuador was in 2010, in Machalilla National Park, then in 2011 in the Galera San Francisco Marine Reserve in Esmeraldas Province, 2012 in El Islote Los Ahorcados [es] in Manabí Province and El Pelado Marine Reserve [es], and 2013 in a few more coastal locations and one further from shore.

It thrives in turbid waters with moderate to strong movement which brings plenty of zooplankton and other food particles within its reach on which to filter feed.

Gametes are liberated into the sea at any time of year, a strategy unusual among corals which mostly synchronise spawning with the phases of the moon.

These are slow-growing stony corals with black skeletons, which are used for the manufacture of jewelry and are the subject of a managed fishery.

The ecological balance is disturbed as the black corals are smothered by the faster growing octocoral and fail to reach a reproductive age (twelve years).

The rapid spread of C. riisei in Hawaii may have been facilitated by the relative scarcity of native octocorals, a group that dominates many reef systems in the Caribbean and the Indo-West Pacific.