Animal found in village centre by mother (5)
I believe the answer is:
llama
'animal' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'village centre by mother' is the wordplay.
'centre' means to look at the middle letters.
'by' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'mother' becomes 'ma' (ma can mean mother).
The middle letters of 'village' are 'lla'.
'lla'+'ma'='LLAMA'
'found in' is the link.
(Other definitions for llama that I've seen before include "South American relative of the camel" , "South American animal like the camel" , "S American animal related to the camel" , "Camel-like animal" , "mammal that chews cud" .)