Crossword Genius

Dash in front of last wild animal (5)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

eland

'animal' is the definition.
(thesaurus)

'dash in front of last wild' is the wordplay.
'dash' becomes 'elan' ('elan' can be a synonym of 'dash'**).
'in front of' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'last' indicates one should take the final letters.
The last letter of 'wild' is 'd'.
'elan'+'d'='ELAND'

(Other definitions for eland that I've seen before include "Large African deer with short spiral horns" , "game animal" , "Browser" , "Wild beast" , "African mammal" .)

I've seen this clue in The Telegraph.
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