Vermilion-coloured crab wandering around island, attracting news article (8)
I believe the answer is:
cinnabar
'vermilion' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'crab wandering around island attracting news article' is the wordplay.
'wandering' indicates anagramming the letters.
'around' is an insertion indicator.
'island' becomes 'i'.
'attracting news' becomes 'nn' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'article' becomes 'a' (indefinite article).
'crab' with letters rearranged gives 'cbar'.
'i'+'nn'+'a'='inna'
'cbar' going around 'inna' is 'CINNABAR'.
'coloured' acts as a link.
I am not very happy about this link. It may be part of another bit of the clue.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for cinnabar that I've seen before include "Red mercury sulphide" , "Heavy red mineral containing mercury" , "Bright red mineral containing mercury" , "Brian can make vermilion pigment" .)