The Pacific electric ray feeds mainly on bony fishes, including anchovies, herring, hake, mackerel, croakers, rockfishes, surfperches, kelp bass, and flatfishes, but will also take cephalopods and invertebrates given the opportunity.
Its jaws are highly distensible, allowing it to swallow surprisingly large prey: one female 1.2 m (3.9 ft) long has been observed ingesting a silver salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) nearly half her length.
During the day, the Pacific electric ray is an ambush predator: when a fish approaches its head, the ray "jumps" forward from its resting place and folds down its disc to envelop it, while delivering strong shocks.
Once the fish is subdued, the ray repositions itself to swallow it head-first.
The entire process takes about two minutes.

At night, when many diurnal fishes descend from the water column and become inactive a short distance above the bottom, the Pacific electric ray switches to an active hunting strategy.
It stalks fish by slowly swimming or simply drifting through the water; when it closes to 5 cm (2.0 in) of the prey, it lunges forward and again envelops the prey within its disc while delivering shocks.
To better secure the fish within its disc, the ray will make short kicks with its tail that sometimes send it into barrel rolls or somersaults.
Finally, the stunned prey is maneuvered to the mouth with ripples of the disc.
In one recorded case, a 75 cm (30 in) long female captured and consumed a 20 cm (7.9 in) long jack mackerel (Trachurus symmetricus) in under ten seconds.
Nighttime seine net sampling at the surface of Monterey Bay has captured Pacific electric rays in surprising numbers, suggesting that they rise upward from the bottom to feed on small fishes.

Though the Pacific electric ray will feed at any hour, it responds to prey much more quickly at night than during the day.
Most prey captures occur in darkness or turbid conditions, when its eyes are largely useless.
Instead, it relies on electroreception via its ampullae of Lorenzini to locate food.
Experiments in the field have shown that it will attack artificially generated electric fields and conductive metal electrodes.
Mechanical sensory cues, detected via the lateral line, also play an important role: this species has been observed preferentially attacking faster-moving prey even if a closer food item was available.
The Pacific electric ray feeds mainly on bony fishes, including anchovies, herring, hake, mackerel, croakers, rockfishes, surfperches, kelp bass, and flatfishes, but will also take cephalopods and invertebrates given the opportunity. Its jaws are highly distensible, allowing it to swallow surprisingly large prey: one female 1.2 m (3.9 ft) long has been observed ingesting a silver salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) nearly half her length. During the day, the Pacific electric ray is an ambush predator: when a fish approaches its head, the ray "jumps" forward from its resting place and folds down its disc to envelop it, while delivering strong shocks. Once the fish is subdued, the ray repositions itself to swallow it head-first. The entire process takes about two minutes.
At night, when many diurnal fishes descend from the water column and become inactive a short distance above the bottom, the Pacific electric ray switches to an active hunting strategy. It stalks fish by slowly swimming or simply drifting through the water; when it closes to 5 cm (2.0 in) of the prey, it lunges forward and again envelops the prey within its disc while delivering shocks. To better secure the fish within its disc, the ray will make short kicks with its tail that sometimes send it into barrel rolls or somersaults. Finally, the stunned prey is maneuvered to the mouth with ripples of the disc. In one recorded case, a 75 cm (30 in) long female captured and consumed a 20 cm (7.9 in) long jack mackerel (Trachurus symmetricus) in under ten seconds. Nighttime seine net sampling at the surface of Monterey Bay has captured Pacific electric rays in surprising numbers, suggesting that they rise upward from the bottom to feed on small fishes.
Though the Pacific electric ray will feed at any hour, it responds to prey much more quickly at night than during the day. Most prey captures occur in darkness or turbid conditions, when its eyes are largely useless. Instead, it relies on electroreception via its ampullae of Lorenzini to locate food. Experiments in the field have shown that it will attack artificially generated electric fields and conductive metal electrodes. Mechanical sensory cues, detected via the lateral line, also play an important role: this species has been observed preferentially attacking faster-moving prey even if a closer food item was available.
Pacific electric ray