The progress on diagnosis and treatment of animal Locoism in America

Locoweed was poisonous plant distributed widely in Northwest rangelands of United States, there were more than 370 species, in which 24 species contained swainsonine and 11 species could cause animal poisoning. Ingesting locoweed could result in livestock death and affect livestock breeding and improvement. The extending locoweed could decrease the utilization rate of grassland and lead to huge losses which threatened seriously the local development of livestock husbandry. In order to reduce the economic losses, American government input large amount of manpower, energy and money on locoism study and had made great achievement in biology, ecology, physiology, toxicology, clinical diagnosis, prevention and treatment of locoweed nowadays. This paper mainly summarized the category, distribution and the recent development in diagnosis and prevention of locoism in America.