Pieces with mane oddly plaited, for example (8)
I believe the answer is:
specimen
'example' is the definition.
(I know that specimen is a type of example)
'pieces with mane oddly plaited' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'pieces' could be 'men' (e.g. in chess) and 'men' is found within the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
'for' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for specimen that I've seen before include "Example of type" , "Example regarded as typical of its class" , "Test sample" , "Representative sample" , "Something used as an example" .)