Examine power in small animal (7)
I believe the answer is:
inspect
'examine' is the definition.
(inspecting is a kind of examining)
'power in small animal' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
'power' could be 'pe' (P.E. is an example) and 'pe' is found within the answer.
'in' is found in the answer.
'small' could be 's' (abbreviation - e.g. clothes size) and 's' is present in the answer.
This may be the basis of clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for inspect that I've seen before include "Examine closely" , "Look at closely" , "Look critically at" , "Examine or survey" , "Assess; examine" .)