Distribution: Common in the Solitary Islands Marine Park. The genus is spread widely throughout the Indian and western Pacific Ocean, including Hawaii and the Marquesas Islands, north to Japan and the Red Sea, south to Lord Howe Island and South Africa. In Australia recorded from the Recherché Archipelago in Western Australia, across the tropical north, throughout the Great Barrier Reef south to central New South Wales on the east coast.

Ecological Notes: Common over a wide range of reef habitats, from lagoons and upper reef flats to shallow and deeper reef slopes.

Additional Notes: Montipora is the second largest coral genus but poorly studied. Almost half of the species are small and inconspicuous, either encrusting or forming small plates. The corallites are the smallest of all corals thus making this genus very difficult to identify by the naked eye. The colonies may take a variety of forms, being submassive, laminar, foliaceous, encrusting or branching, and their colour ranges from cream through brown, purple, pink, green and blue. 

References: Veron, J.E.N., Corals of Australia and the Indo-Pacific. Angus and Robertson Publishers, 1986. Pp. 91-95.