Fire Piranha Plant

A Venus Fire Trap is a variety of Piranha Plant that shoots fireballs in Mario's direction. They can be either green or red and appear in Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins and New Super Mario Bros.

Venus Fire Traps made several appearances in The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3. Piranha Plants with fireball exhaling abilities similar to Venus Fire Traps also appeared in The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! though referred to as a Magic Piranha Plant.

In the Nintendo Comics System story "The Fish That Should've Gotten Away", a giant Venus Fire Trap, green in color, appears among the large group of monsters attacking and chasing Mario.

They also appear rarely in Super Mario 64 in Tiny-Huge Island and Bowser in the Sky, where they are drastically smaller than their previous appearances. They would attack by appearing suddenly, then blasting a small fireball before disappearing. They were easy to defeat if Mario punches one, where it would simply pop and leave a coin behind. Larger versions appeared in the same game where they were just as large a Super Piranha Plants. They attacked the same and could be defeated with a single punch.

Trivia

 * Venus Fire Trap is a play on the name of a real life carnivorous plant, the Venus Flytrap.