This is a red sponge which forms thin, smooth encrusting patches, up to 5 cm across, with regularly spaced oscula.

Ophlitaspongia papilla forms small encrusting patches seldom more than 5 cm (2 in) across on boulders and rocks.

[2] Ophlitaspongia papilla occurs in the northeastern Atlantic Ocean, its range extending from the British Isles to the Canary Islands, the Azores and Madeira.

It is occasionally found at slightly greater depths encrusting the shells of bivalve molluscs such as Chlamys opercularis.

Most later swim downwards and descend to the substrate where they can creep about before metamorphosis takes place some 24 to 36 hours after liberation, but some metamorphose on the surface.