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.

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.

Cartoons
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.

Comics
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.

Trivia

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