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.