Haliotis finds gold by the sea in France (5)
I believe the answer is:
ormer
'haliotis' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both animals as well as being singular nouns.
Maybe you can see an association between them that I can't see?
'gold by the sea in france' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'gold' could be 'or' ('or' is the heraldic name for gold) and 'or' is found in the answer.
'sea' could be 'mer' (I have seen 'French sea ' mean 'mer' so perhaps 'sea' could also mean 'mer') and 'mer' is found within the answer.
This accounts for all the letters.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
'finds' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for ormer that I've seen before include "sea creature" , "Delicacy from Channel Islands" , "Seafood" , "Ear-shaped shell" , "Mollusc" .)