The term Corphish can be understood to mean "A fisher of corpses," for both the verb sense of fish and the term corpse were derived by this pokemon's name. These pokemon hunt by concealing themselves in marine sediment, opening their large, orange claw, and waiting for other pokemon to swim by to strike. Yet Corphish are a small pokemon, and their claws have achieved their enormous size in order to hunt the most common prey in their habitat: fish like Goldeen or Magikarp far too large for a single Corphish to digest in one sitting.
Corphish do not waste their extra food, but make sincere efforts to bury their prey in sand, yet amidst shifting tides and hungry thieves they rarely manage a second meal. Typically, the pokemon they kill are eaten either by true scavengers such as Wingull, or by larger, ordinarily predatory pokemon such as Whiscash which attack Corphish to steal their prey. Yet this can be dangerous, for if a Corphish is powerful enough, the larger predators will join their initial catch in the sand. Indeed, some Corphish manage to amass large stockpiles of would-be scavengers and are able to forsake fishing for weeks at a time.
It is this primitive form of food preservation which have given Corphish their longtime association with the dead. In some places and eras, the Corphish were seen as the ultimate invasive species, barbaric conquerors of the ocean who left behind a trail of bodies wherever they swam. Yet many peoples have likened their care for their prey's bodies with the human customs of mummification and the burial of the dead. Many archaeological excavations have found large Corphish figures in ancient cemeteries positioned as guards, presumably in the hopes of warding off grave robbers and evil spirits alike.