Piranha Plant

For fighter info, see Piranha Plant (SSBU).

Piranha Plant
Artwork of a potted Piranha Plant from Super Mario 3D World and a Piranha Plant in a pipe from Mario Party DS.
Universe	Mario
Debut	Super Mario Bros. (1985)
Smash Bros. appearances	SSB Brawl SSB4 Ultimate
Most recent non-Smash appearance	Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (2024)
Console/platform of origin	Nintendo Entertainment System
Species	Piranha Plant
Gender	Genderless
Place of origin	Mushroom Kingdom
Created by	Shigeru Miyamoto
Article on Super Mario Wiki	Piranha Plant

Piranha Plants (パックンフラワー, Packun Flower) are enemies from the Mario series.

Origin

A red Piranha Plant in Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels

Piranha Plants are recurring Mario enemies that primarily live in Warp Pipes and attempt to bite Mario and other characters. They are based on venus flytraps and first appear in the original Super Mario Bros., and have appeared frequently throughout the Mario franchise. Piranha Plants usually start popping out of their pipes for a few seconds then retract when the player is far away or above the pipe, but usually stay hidden when the player gets closer. Piranha Plants typically cannot be jumped on, as doing so would damage the player. They instead need to be taken out with attack-based power ups, such as the Fire Flower and Super Star. A large number of Piranha Plant subspecies exist, including variants that breathe fire, spit poison, and other abilities. There are also larger Piranha Plants that serve as bosses, such as Petey Piranha, a boss debuting in Super Mario Sunshine, and Naval Piranha, a recurring boss from the Yoshi series. Petey Piranha is the leader of all Piranha Plants.

In Super Smash Bros.

As a stage element

The Piranha Plant in Super Smash Bros.

Piranha Plants sometimes appear out of the Warp Pipes on the Mushroom Kingdom stage. They are enemies that don't have a set schedule between the two pipes. They won't appear if the character is on the pipe or on the side of the pipes, and the pipes are very low, making them easy to jump over.

In Super Smash Bros. Brawl

Petey Piranha, the first boss of Adventure Mode: The Subspace Emissary, is an oversized, mobile Piranha Plant.

As a stage element

A Piranha Plant may sometimes appear as a stage element on PictoChat. However, they don't go up or down, and they stay on the stationary platform.

Trophies

Piranha Plant's trophy in Brawl

Piranha Plant

A vicious, plantlike monster that typically hides in pipes. Piranha Plants emerge with mouths open, awaiting victims. A poorly timed jump means a chomping--hence the "piranha" name. While there have been exceptions--there are many Piranha Plants with unique traits--they generally don't appear if Mario waits on top of or just next to a pipe. They hate fireballs.

A vicious, plant-like monster that typically hides in pipes. Piranha Plants emerge with mouths open, awaiting victims. A poorly-timed jump means a chomping--hence the "piranha" name. While there have been exceptions--there are many Piranha Plants with unique traits--they generally don't appear if Mario waits on top of or just next to a pipe. They hate fireballs.

: Super Mario Bros.

: New Super Mario Bros.

Petey Piranha's trophy in Brawl

Petey Piranha

A colossal Piranha Plant. Unlike its pipe-inhabiting cousins, it uses its legs to walk around. It can fly, too. As you might expect, it often appears as a boss character in Mario adventures. This may come as a surprise, but it also displays surprising dexterity in kart races and ball games.

: Super Mario Sunshine

: New Super Mario Bros.

Stickers

Name	Game	Effect	Characters
Petey Piranha	Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour	AttackDarkness+047 Attack +47	Ganondorf
Petey Piranha	Mario Strikers Charged	AttackBite+032 Attack +32	Yoshi Wario Wolf Pokémon Trainer

Petey Piranha (Mario Golf: TT)

Petey Piranha (Mario Strikers Charged)

In Super Smash Bros. 4

Piranha Plants reappear as just a trophy.

Trophy

The Piranha Plant trophy appears in both versions. In Super Smash Bros. for Wii U it is part of the Super Mario Bros. Trophy Box.

Piranha Plant's trophy in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS

Piranha Plant's trophy in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U

Piranha Plant

These guys aren't so much carnivorous as Mario...nivorous. Ahem. There are lots of varieties, like Frost, Wild Ptooie, Ghost, Prickly, Dino, Bone, Elasto-Piranhas, Stalking, Naval... A helpful mnemonic is "Fireballs with Ground Pounds defeat baddies, even super nasties."

: Super Mario Bros. (10/1985)

: Super Mario Bros. 3 (02/1990)

These carnivorous plants are hungry for one thing – Mario! There are all sorts of them, including the Naval Piranha, Fire Piranha Plant, Inky Piranha Plant, Piranha Creeper, Bone Piranha Plant, Stalking Piranha Plant... But all you need to know is "plants with teeth want to eat Mario".

: Super Mario Bros. (05/1987)

: Super Mario Bros. 3 (08/1991)

In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

As a playable character

Piranha Plant as a fighter in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

Piranha Plant was confirmed as a DLC character on November 1st, 2018, making its debut as a playable character for the first time in any game. Piranha Plant was released on January 29th, 2019, and was available for free to players that registered the game with My Nintendo by January 31st, 2019. It was later made available as paid DLC separate from any Fighters Pass on February 1st, 2019. In Smash, Piranha Plant is a semi-super heavyweight with various unique attacks. Its neutral special, Ptooie, is a spiked ball projectile which can be held above itself or directed left or right, flying further depending on how close the ball is to its mouth when it is sent out. Piranha Plant's side special, Poison Breath, is a chargeable poison cloud projectile that can rack up massive amounts of damage when fully charged. Its up special is its recovery move, Piranhacopter; it is an easily maneuverable and long-lasting recovery that deals damage to any players caught in it. Long-Stem Strike is Piranha Plant's down special; it is a rotatable attack that becomes more disjointed the longer it is charged for. Lastly, its Final Smash involves summoning Petey Piranha in his Subspace Emissary incarnation to imprison other fighters in his cages, breathe fire on them, and slam them into the ground.

As a stage element

On Mushroom Kingdom in Ultimate.

Piranha Plants once again appear on the returning Mushroom Kingdom stage, now using their 2D sprites from Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels.

Spirits

Fighter spirit

• 

  1303. Piranha Plant

Primary spirits

No.	Image	Name	Type	Class	Slots	Base	Max	Base	Max	Base	Max	Ability	Series
53		Nipper Plant		★	2	861	4309	435	2176	426	2133	Can Be Enhanced at Lv. 99	Super Mario Series
54		Petey Piranha		★★★	2	3319	9989	1616	4862	1322	3978	Giant	Super Mario Series
125		Petey Piranha (Super Mario Strikers) Petey Piranha (Mario Strikers)		★★	1	1663	6696	798	3214	865	3482	No Effect	Super Mario Strikers Series Mario Strikers Series

Names in other languages

Language	Name	Meaning
Japanese	パックンフラワー, Packun Flower	Pakkun means "Swallowing whole"
English	Piranha Plant	—
French (PAL)	Plante Piranha	Piranha Plant
French (NTSC)	Fleur Piranha	Piranha Flower
German	Piranha-Pflanze	Piranha Plant
Spanish	Planta Piraña	Piranha Plant
Italian	Pianta Piranha	Piranha Plant
Chinese	吞食花, Packun Flower	Swallowing Flower
Korean	뻐끔플라워, Packun Flower	From the Japanese name
Dutch	Piranha Plant	—
Russian	Растение-пиранья	Piranha Plant
Portuguese	Planta Piranha	Piranha Plant

Trivia

• Piranha Plant made its playable debut in Smash before becoming playable in its own series (namely, in Dr. Mario World).
  • However, Fire and Poison Piranha Plants are enemies that can be captured in Super Mario Odyssey. Petey Piranha, a Piranha Plant himself who appears in Piranha Plant's Final Smash, has also been playable in various Mario spin-off games and was also notably the only playable Piranha Plant prior to Piranha Plant’s debut.
  • Worth noting is the fact that a Fire Piranha Plant, a variant of Piranha Plant, was added as a character in Mario Tennis Aces as a post-launch character, and, like the Piranha Plant in Smash, is potted and moves around in said pot.
• Piranha Plant is the first playable character in the series to be a generic enemy.
  • This distinction is now shared with Zombie and Enderman, although unlike with Piranha Plant, they are not their own characters.
• Piranha Plant is the only character with no indication of eyes. Prior to Ultimate, Mr. Game & Watch held this distinction; however, starting with Ultimate, his model changed to have eyes during certain attacks.
• Piranha Plant is the only character to receive a Guidance conversation in the game it was DLC in.
• Piranha Plant, R.O.B., Mr. Game & Watch, and Dark Samus are the only playable characters to not have a "proper" face, meaning it consists of a mouth, eyes, nose, etc.
  • This is excluding Samus, who wears a helmet over her face.
  • In Mr. Game & Watch's case, his eyes do exist, only showing up in certain animations; prior to Ultimate, however, this was not the case.
• With it debuting in September 1985, Piranha Plant is the oldest fighter introduced in Ultimate.
  • Piranha Plant has the largest gap of any first-party character between its debut and becoming playable, at nearly 34 years, and the second largest gap overall, after Pac-Man, who had a gap of over 34 years.
• Piranha Plant and Corrin are the only DLC newcomers to not come with a new stage. Of the two, Piranha Plant is the only one to not come with any music.
• Piranha Plant has the longest duration of debuting in a non-playable role before becoming a playable character at 20 years, as it debuted in the original Super Smash Bros. as a stage hazard in the Mushroom Kingdom stage before becoming a playable fighter in Ultimate via DLC.
  • Because of this, Piranha Plant is the first DLC fighter to have made a non-playable appearance before becoming a fighter. It would later be followed by Min Min, Pyra, and Mythra.