The copper shark feeds more towards the bottom of the water column than the top, consuming cephalopods, including squid ("Loligo" spp.), cuttlefishes, and octopus; bony fishes, including gurnards, flatfishes, hakes, catfishes, jacks, Australian salmon, mullets, sea breams, smelts, tunas, sardines, and anchovies; and cartilaginous fishes, including dogfish sharks ("Squalus" spp.), stingrays, skates, electric rays, and sawfishes. Cephalopods and cartilaginous fishes become relatively more important food for sharks over long. Young sharks also consume scyphozoan jellyfish and crustaceans, including mud shrimps ("Callianassa") and penaeid prawns. It does not attack marine mammals, though has been known rarely to scavenge on dolphins that had succumbed to fishing nets. The predominant prey of this species off South Africa is the southern African pilchard ("Sardinops sagax"), which comprise 69–95% of its diet. Every winter, schools of copper sharks follow the "run" of the pilchard from the Eastern Cape to KwaZulu-Natal. The gathering of millions of forage fish attract a multitude of predators, including several species of sharks, of which copper sharks are the most numerous.