A simple and selective aptamer-based colorimetric method was developed for highly sensitive detection of acetamiprid, taking advantages of the sensitive target-induced colour changes that arisen from the interparticle plasmon coupling during the aggregation of Au nanoparticles (NPs). The results showed that the established method could be applied to detect acetamiprid in the linear range between 75 nM to 7.5 mu M, with a low detection limit of 5 nM. Meanwhile, by employing an "artificial antibody" acetamiprid-binding aptamer (ABA) as recognition element, highly selective and specific colorimetric visualization of acetamiprid was obtained. It indicated that pesticides which may coexist with acetamiprid could not interfere with the detection of acetamiprid even that had similar structure with acetamiprid, such as imidacloprid and chlorpyrifos. Mechanism study suggested that it could be attributed to the specific supramolecular interaction between ABA and acetamiprid, as well as the resulted target-binding event induced conformation changes of ABA from random coil to hairpin structure. The practical application of the colorimetric method was realized for detecting acetamiprid in real soil samples and monitoring its natural degradation process. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.