The "bubbles" are grape-sized which increase their surface area according to the amount of light available: they are larger during the day, but smaller during the night, when tentacles reach out to capture food.

According to the IUCN, Plerogyra sinuosa ranges from the Red Sea and Madagascar in the western Indian Ocean to Okinawa and the Line Islands in the Pacific.

These spines then elongate and a new polyp develops, this budding method being an unusual occurrence among corals.

[3] In the living coral, Plerogyra sinuosa has vesicles resembling bubbles up to 2.5 cm (1 in) in diameter.

[2] It obtains most of its nutritional needs from the symbiotic dinoflagellates that live inside its soft tissues including the walls of the vesicles.