Chloramphenicol (CAP) has been widely used to treat bacterial infections in livestock and aquatic animals. To reduce the risk of CAP residues, an efficient technology to rapidly detect CAP residues in animal-sourced food is expressly needed. In this study, magnetic bead-based systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment (Mag-SELEX) strategy was performed to select and identify CAP-specific single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) aptamers from a random oligonucleotide library. After nine rounds of selection, five potential ssDNA aptamers were selected. Low homology indicated that they might belong to different families. To identify an aptamer with the highest affinity for CAP, the dissociation constant (K (d)) values of these selected aptamers were determined. The lowest K (d) values of two potential aptamers (i.e., No. 4 and No. 5) were, respectively, 0.10162 +/- A 0.0111 and 0.03224 +/- A 0.00819 mu M, which were much lower than previously reported lowest K (d) value (i.e., 0.766 mu M) of CAP aptamer. Moreover, compared with No. 4, aptamer No. 5 had higher binding rate, which is quite different among those with CAP and with CAP's structural analogs (i.e., thiamphenicol (TAP) and florfenicol (FF)). These results indicated that the potential aptamer No. 5 with highest specificity and affinity for CAP would be an ideal aptamer for future detection of residual CAP in animal-sourced food.