Erythropodium caribaeorum is an encrusting soft coral (order Alcyonacea, family Anthothelidae) found throughout the Caribbean Sea and tropical western Atlantic, forming thin red to brown encrusting sheets with small retractile polyps over rocky substrates, dead coral, and other hard surfaces. The species is known to produce bioactive diterpenes and other secondary metabolites with documented allelopathic properties. It is an important competitor for reef space in degraded Caribbean reef environments and a model for studying soft coral chemical ecology. Genomic data have been generated for this species and are available in public databases, enabling comparative studies of cnidarian evolution and ecology.