The golden trevally is a diurnal foraging carnivore which, unlike other carangids, does not normally seek out individual prey items. The highly protractile mouth possessed by the species is used to form a tube to suck prey out of both reef- and algae-dominated habitats, as well as filtering organisms out of sandy substrates. In the latter case, both sand and any prey items are taken into the mouth and filtered through the gill rakers; sand is expelled, while small organisms are trapped and swallowed. The species takes a variety of prey including crustaceans such as shrimp, crabs, and amphipods, as well as molluscs and small fish. Golden trevally found inhabiting a mangrove swamp were found to have fed exclusively on fish ("Mugil curema"), suggesting the species also actively hunts down fleeing prey. A laboratory study using only four individuals being fed found that one fish will take the 'lead' position in this situation while another will attack the other fish in the school, apparently in competition for food.