G. niloticus is nocturnal and has a poor vision. Instead, it navigates and hunts smaller fish using a weak electric field, as demonstrated by the zoologist Hans Lissmann in 1950, when he noticed that it could swim equally well forwards or backwards, clearly relying on a sense other than vision. This opened up research into electroreception and electrogenesis in fish.
Like the related elephantfish, which hunts the same way, it possesses an unusually large brain, which is believed to help it interpret the electrical signals. It can make its tail negatively charged with respect to its head. This produces a symmetrical electric field around its body.