Crossword Genius

Cattle fed to jungle animal next (9)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

proximate

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'next' is the definition.
(thesaurus)

'cattle fed to jungle animal' is the wordplay.
'cattle' becomes 'ox' (ox is a kind of cattle).
'fed to' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'jungle animal' becomes 'primate' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'ox' placed inside 'primate' is 'PROXIMATE'.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for proximate that I've seen before include "next door" , "immediately following" , "Very close" , "Closest" .)

I've seen this clue in The Telegraph.
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