Bovine disease in insect not there (6)
I believe the answer is:
absent
'not there' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'bovine disease in insect' is the wordplay.
'bovine disease' becomes 'bse' (bovine spongiform encephalopathy, mad cow disease. I am not sure about the 'bovine' bit.).
'in' is an insertion indicator.
'insect' becomes 'an't' (ant is a kind of insect).
'bse' put within 'ant' is 'ABSENT'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for absent that I've seen before include "Not where one should be" , "AWOL" , "elsewhere" , "lack of attention" , "Not present - vacuous" .)