Potoos feed at dusk and at night on flying insects. Their typical nocturnal foraging technique is to perch on a branch and occasionally fly out in the manner of a flycatcher in order to snatch a passing insect. They occasionally fly to vegetation to glean an insect off it before returning to their perch, but they do not attempt to obtain prey from the ground. Beetles form a large part of their diet, but they also take moths, grasshoppers and termites.

During the day they perch upright on tree stumps, camouflaged to look like part of the stump.