Piranha Plant

Piranha Plants are Venus Flytrap-like plants that appear in side-scrolling caves alongside Goombas in Link's Awakening.

Characteristics and Weaknesses

Piranha Plants are man-eating flowers that originated in Super Mario Bros. and are common enemies throughout the Mario series. Like their Mario counterparts, they appear out of pipes at regular intervals and try to eat Link as he passes by. Link has to use the Roc's Feather to pass these enemies, but he can also use his Sword to destroy them. Their appearance alongside Goombas in an underground area is a direct reference to World 1-2 in Super Mario Bros. and locations in many other Mario games.

Trivia

The appearance of Piranha Plants here is based on the appearance in somewhat earlier games such as Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins.
Piranha Plants themselves only appear on Koholint, but the Manhandla from the first The Legend of Zelda was referred to as a very large Piranha Plant in the Japanese manual; this reference was removed in all localizations and eventually in the Japanese Virtual Console release. Link's Awakening featured a clearly "wonderland"-type of world, so the presence of the creature in the fairly serious first game may suggest that Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda (at least the first of each) were intended to be part of the same universe. The Manhandla appears in Oracle of Seasons as well; it is currently unknown if the reference is retained.
Unlike the Manhandla (its original incarnation at least), regular Piranha Plants seem to have already been caught by the "'Pakkun Flower' to 'Pakkun'" change that started with Yoshi.