Disclosed is a method and apparatus for adaptive object detection, which may be applied in detecting an object having an ellipse feature. The method for adaptive object detection comprises performing an object shape detection based on the extracted foreground from the object; determining whether the object being occluded according to the detected feature statistic information of the object; if the object being not occluded, determining whether to switching object shape detection to ellipse detection; if the object being occluded or necessary to switch to ellipse detection, performing ellipse detection on the foreground; when the foreground being detected to have ellipse features, the object is continuously tracked; and when the current detection being ellipse detection, determining whether the ellipse detection being able to switch back to object shape detection.