Spindrift

A Spindrift, or Flower Head, is a hovering enemy from Super Mario 64. Spindrifts have a spinning flower on their heads that allows them to hover around. They also have a yellow cone at the bottom of their heads. A green leaf-like cape tops the first half of the yellow cone. A Spindrift's head is just a white sphere with two eyes and a small mouth. In the Nintendo DS remake, Spindrifts' heads now have a peach-yellow color, their flowers on their heads are somewhat bigger, and their mouths are now colored black instead of red. They can also hover above water in the DS version.

If Mario jumps on the creature, the Spindrift releases three coins, and Mario spin-jumps in the air. This technique can be used to get to other areas in new ways. Spindrifts appear in both snow courses: Cool, Cool Mountain and Snowman's Land. In the latter course, several of them make their home inside an igloo.

Spindrifts were supposed to appear in New Super Mario Bros. but were taken out of the final version, where Spin Blocks fulfill their function.

While standard Spindrifts do not appear in Super Mario Odyssey, one of the game's bosses, Torkdrift, is a mechanical Spindrift.

Trivia

 * The Japanese name for the mission Into the Igloo implies that the igloo is the home for the Spindrifts.