They grow over the surface of a rock in a layer a few millimetres thick with occasional short chimney-like outgrowths.

Its range includes the West Indies, the Bahamas, southern Florida, Venezuela and northern Brazil, but it is absent from Bermuda.

[2] The golden zoanthid (Parazoanthus swiftii), a colonial coral, is often found twined round the sponge in a symbiotic relationship.

The polyps look like small sea anemones and contain toxins which deter predatory fish from eating the sponge.

[5] The coral benefits from the increased volume of food particles its polyps can capture as water is drawn through fine pores into the sponge.