The most common and most likely answer to this crossword clue is the 3 plus 5 letter word RED PANDA
I've seen this crossword clue in Independent
R
E
D
P
A
N
D
A
More clues leading to the result RED PANDA
- Creature‘s face bitten by climbing snake
- Himalayan animal unfortunately paraded around Nepalese capital
- Animal raped and murdered
- Asian animal‘s sweep blocking comeback of viper
- Communist played with a resident of China
- Animal reportedly learned to please the masses
- Maoist secretary eats along with Chinese native
Buddy explains!
The straight part
We know that "Creature" is the straight/definition part of the clue. The straight part is often a synonym or definition, in this case creature = red panda.The cryptic/wordplay part
In cryptic crossword there's often an wordplay/cryptic part as well.This part involves a more complex hint, such as an anagram, homophone, hidden word, etc.
Sadly, We don't have an explanation for this specific crossword clue yet.