Animal rootled at first in poor soil (5)
I believe the answer is:
loris
'animal' is the definition.
Both the definition and answer are singular nouns.
Maybe there's an association between them I don't understand?
'rootled at first in poor soil' is the wordplay.
'at first' indicates taking the first letters.
'in' indicates putting letters inside.
'poor' is an anagram indicator.
The initial letter of 'rootled' is 'r'.
'soil' with letters rearranged gives 'lois'.
'r' placed inside 'lois' is 'LORIS'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for loris that I've seen before include "Nocturnal primate of Southeast Asia (usually slender or slow)" , "Slow-moving nocturnal primate" , "Short-tailed mammal" , "Small nocturnal primate" , "lemur" .)