Significance The central nervous system monitors reduction in metabolic state and promotes feeding and foraging in response. While feeding behavior has been extensively studied, the regulation of foraging behavior remains largely unknown. In this study, we show that starvation-induced hyperactivity in adult fruit flies resembled foraging activity. We also found that octopamine, the insect counterpart of vertebrate norepinephrine, was crucial for starvation-induced foraging. We further showed that octopamine was not required for starvation-induced changes in feeding, suggesting independent regulations of energy intake behaviors upon starvation. Taken together, our results establish a quantitative foraging assay and a highly conserved neural substrate that regulates foraging, offering an entry point to further dissect the neural circuitry of this important behavior.